I got in to the messroom, dumped my work bag, and made myself a coffee, and saw a driver who i talk to about football quite a lot called Tony, well talk about football a lot, he is another football nut, and i think we was started to talk about a dodgy penalty at Old Trafford the previous day, when i half heard something on the news, about some tragic news from the world of football. BANG, the news ticker said 'FAW ANNOUNCE WALES MANAGER GARY SPEED HAS DIED AGED 42', i can still remember what it said word for word, because the chill that went through me will live with for a long time. BANG, my mind was in racing, how, what, who, what the fuck. BANG Gary Speed has died BANG ex-Blades manager has died. It was one of those moments i was absolutely speechless, and i made my excuses that i needed the toilet, walked out the messroom and stood in silence on the top end of a deserted Platform 5 at Nottingham fighting back the tears and wondering how the fucking hell has Gary Speed. I went back in to the messroom where everyone was talking about it, and sat down and started looking at the news on my iPhone to try and compute some sense in to it, and find out what had happened. BANG Gary Speed hangs himself BANG Gary Speed, Suicide BANG Why, why why?. Slowly through the day i managed to keep it all together and work, but with Gary Speed never far from my thoughts. I remember going home that night and sitting on the train thinking about it, not far from tears, and when i got back to Sheffield that night, i turned Radio 5 live on, listened to the news and drove home sobbing, not just for Gary Speed, but the cruelness of the disease of the human mind that is depression, and still in complete and utter disbelief of the death of someone who was the classic case of the last person you would have ever thought would have committed suicide.
I thought a lot about Gary Speed during the following days, remembering the wily old pro who joined us from Bolton, remembering the bright young coach on the staff at Bramall Lane, and finally Gary Speed the manager who to be quite honest and frank wasn't a great success at the Lane, but on reflection the club was a fucking shambles and very few managers would have enjoyed success. It was whilst reflecting on his time as manager that a few things started coming together. One was a radio interview i had heard where it seemed that he didn't know how to sort out the problems at Bramall Lane, and it gave me a real insight that he was either out of his depth, or he didn't have confidence in his abilities. Something else that i picked up without prehap's realising it at the time, was how downbeat and uninspiring he could sound at the time. Possibly it was something that you could be critical of at the time, but to me reflecting with the hindsight of Gary Speed taking his own life, maybe he was suffering from depression at the time he was Sheffield United manager, maybe he was masking it and hiding the truth, although the truth will never be known to anyone apart from one person, and sadly that one person never disclosed the truth and took it to the grave with him.
During the past week, there was a fascinating and insightful programme on BBC about Depression in Sport, that was hosted by Andrew Flintoff, where he, and other spoke open and candidly about the depression that blighted their lives, and it came out with cold hard truth's. The most fascinating person to appear was Steve Harmison the former England fast bowler, who i remember being called 'a puzzle in a riddle wrapped in an enigma' such was the fluctuations in his form. I remember Grevious Bodily Harmsion on his day being the best fast bowler i have seen in my time watching Cricket. Seriously fast, and unplayable on his day, but his day was not often enough, and more often than not you would see him bowling poorly, erratically and ineffective, with all the negative bodily language that you can throw a cricket ball at. I'm no anthropologist but looking back the fact that he spent time during his career suffering with depression is no great shock, and he must have spent years like that.
Sportsmen are the last people you would expect to suffer with depression. Young, fit adults doing something that the majority of people would want to do for a living, but top level sport is the people at the very top of the game, and this brings unique pressure to perform at the very top of the game, and put every single last ounce of effort in to achieving sporting greatness, and when they pull up short, it can be a depressing thing. In normal life if you are suffering from depression, you can hide away, but once you cross the white line, and playing sport at the highest level there is nowhere to hide, and maybe when you want to hide, the attention on you is magnified.
Within the world of Football, there is now money and pressure involved to such an extent that it is literally a pressure cooker, and results mean everything, and a mistake could end up costing million upon millions of pound. Instead of your legacy being somebody who put everything in to being the best they could and known for the amount of effort or professionalism you gave, you could be the man who would be known for eternity for a mistake you made, or for costing your team a victory. Throw in to this the blanket coverage that Football receives in the media, the way that during the internet age, whatever you do, is examined instantly on forums, facebook, twitter and various other digital media and social networking sites.
With the huge number of football message boards about, the one player that plays for my club that springs to mind is a loyal, hard-working if somewhat limited midfielder called Nick Montgomery, or Monty as he is known. Monty joined Sheffield United straight from school, made his debut for the club at the age of 17, and 11 years on is something of a stalwart having clocked up somewhere in the region of 400 appearances for Sheffield United. I can't recall a single appearance where Monty had not put a proper shift in, i remember Monty dislocated his shoulder and then turning out again the week after as the side needed him, i can sadly remember seeing Monty subjected to abuse week in, week out, and i have seen him absolutely slaughtered on the Football Forum's time and time again. Imagine Monty reading some of the stuff written about him, it could absolutely destroy his confidence, send him spiralling in to depression, and for what. Earning a decent wage and putting a shift in. It's a sobering thought.
After watching the Depression in Sport documentary, i thought that it would be a good topic to blog about, and today's news about Dean Windass making 2 suicide attempts and suffering from depression gives me a good example to use as i finish this entry. Here was a bloke who earned good money, and got a decent living out of the game, but has been unable to cope with the end of his career. His 18 year marriage has ended, he has not got much money left out of what he made out of the game, suffering with a alcohol problem and the vast majority of people will say it is his own fault, but the reality is that Dean Windass is still a human being, who makes mistakes, and has to bear the consequences, and as a human being is not infallable from Churchill's black dog of depression following him about. The simple reality of it all is everybody is a human being, with thoughts, and emotions all of their own, and the saddest thing is we are just as susceptible to this sad disease as the next person
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