By John Cross Phil Dowd went toe-to-toe with some of football’s biggest names. Former Premier League referee Dowd, 61, took charge of memorable matches involving the likes of Jose Mourinho and Sir Alex Ferguson. And Dowd is now ready for an even bigger challenge but is determined to show that life does not end with diagnosis as he battles Parkinson’s in a positive way. Dowd admits that he did not want to confront the truth for the first two years since he was told that he had the condition which affects the nervous system. Incredibly, around 153,000 people in the UK have been diagnosed with th…