Spurs stalwart Perryman says lucky to be alive

Former Tottenham Hotspur defender Steve Perryman, who had life-saving heart surgery earlier this year, says he owes his survival to the medical attention he received at the football ground where he collapsed.

Perryman, who captained Spurs to victory in the 1981 and 1982 FA Cup finals and played over 850 games for the London club, suffered a torn aota while watching the final game of last season at third-tier Exeter City where he is director of football.

He had emergency care at the ground before being air-lifted to hospital.

Perryman's survival mirrors that of former Bolton Wanderers player Fabrice Muamaba who collapsed after a cardiac arrest playing at White Hart Lane last February, but survived because of the emergency treatment he received at the ground.

"The odds were definitely against me - apparently 15 years ago you wouldn't have had any chance to survive it," Perryman, 60, told BBC Devon.

"Sixty percent don't make it to hospital, and of those that do, only five percent survive.

"I had a pain in my chest and I realised that it wasn't indigestion, it was a devious pain, so I quickly knew I needed help," added Perryman, who played for Spurs from 1969 to 1986.

"Andy Tilson (Exeter's reserve team manager) was a few  steps below me in the grandstand, so I tried to go down the steps to tap him on the shoulder, and when I did my legs gave way. He then ran down the touchline who got the doctor who got me rushed to hospital."

Perryman, who played once for England and had coaching spells at Brentford and then Shimizu S-Pulse and Kashiwa Reysol in Japan, spent two weeks in intensive care and more than a month in hospital before being allowed home.