The footballer trapped in 'The House of the Beautiful Sleeping Athlete'

On 17 March 1982, the former France international footballer Jean-Pierre Adams, at the age of 34, was admitted to a Lyon hospital to undergo a routine knee operation. He was given anaesthetic that should have knocked him out for a few hours but, more than 30 years later, he has yet to awake.

Adams is a figure who drifts in and out of the consciousness of the French public but who is largely forgotten outside his homeland, despite being a highly-regarded figure as a pioneer for French-African footballers. With 22 caps to his credit, he turned out more regularly for Les Bleus than David Ginola, Ludovic Giuly and even Just Fontaine, carrying himself with a humble spirit and a ceaseless smile.

His story begins in Dakar, Senegal, where he was born on 10 March 1948, the oldest child of a large family. Although football was in young Jean-Pierre's blood – his uncle Alexandre Diadhiou played for the celebrated Jeanne d'Arc club – education was made the priority in his life by his devoutly Catholic family and he was not allowed to play the sport he loved unless his grades in school were of a sufficient standard.

With this in mind, Adams was sent alone to continue his schooling in France, where he was ultimately fostered by the Jourdain family in Loiret, a department a little south of Paris.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/27/jean-pierre-adams-footballer-coma