It has taken Max Noble more than a decade to find the courage to share the stories he is about to tell.
To recall publicly how he went from the brilliantly promising winger at Fulham and a Wales youth international to the 19-year-old hiding under the covers in bed crying, day after day, struggling with the anxiety and depression that he still manages now. To detail what led to him contemplating suicide.
Noble does not particularly want to recall these harrowing experiences, yet he is opening up because he knows of more than 150 former youth footballers who have experienced similar things, and wants something to change.
Multiple suicide attempts. At least one case of self-harm that has left a former academy player with scars up his arm. Many of them have confided in Noble even though they have not spoken to their closest family members or friends.
He has created an informal support group with 25 of them, with whom Noble has shared his own experiences: painkilling injections administered to children; bullying and racism; threats if he did not sign up with a recommended agent; Fulham’s refusal to pay for a double knee operation shortly before they discarded him. And, in turn, “the boys”, as Noble refers to them, share a little back: in messages, phone calls, voice notes.
So Noble wants to speak for them, to provide a glimpse into what it is like for young footballers sold an impossible dream, and the devastating consequences the game has refused to acknowledge.
Fulham have opened an investigation after i made them aware of Noble’s allegations and insist they “condemn bullying, racism and discrimination in any form and work hard to ensure that they have no place here”, adding that “the club will investigate the historic claims and liaise with all relevant parties”.
And though it is hard to hear what happened to Noble, it is important that everyone listens and takes note, or what he describes as a form of “grooming” and “abuse” of desperate children will never stop. “This is football’s biggest, best-kept secret,” Noble says.
We already know of some cases where young footballers have been found dead shortly after being let go. Last year, Jeremy Wisten was found in his bedroom and a coroner’s inquest has called for Manchester City to explain the support they provided him before and after he was told the club no longer wanted him. The year before, another promising young player, who had a trial at Manchester United, took his own life after struggling with injuries.
How many more young men have attempted suicide as a consequence of their treatment by football clubs who spend years building them up then cast them aside as though they are worthless? How many more are left to deal with severe anxiety and depression alone, like Noble? The true extent of the problem is unknown. Perhaps the most tragic thing is that no one in football cares enough to find out.
The former players Noble, who was raised in south London, speaks to span only Fulham and Crystal Palace. But he suspects there are many more out there, with similar stories of similar struggles. When recently he produced an online video – Chasing Shadows – articulating the issues young footballers face, he received more than 150 messages from former academy players explaining that they had been through it. Many thought they were the only ones.
Noble’s goal is simple and focused: if football clubs take boys out of school, they owe them a duty of care when they let them go. And it will happen to most of them: 98 per cent of 16 to 18 year olds who sign youth scholarships are released, or drop out of the game entirely, by 21.
After instilling false hope in the 98 per cent, damaging their education, denying them life experiences, after paying them only around £400 per month, what care do clubs provide when they let them go?
“The only thing I want to change,” Noble explains, “is if you take a boy out of school you owe him aftercare. That’s it. You can’t promise them the world, then ignore them when they’re depressed, or they’re going through what I had to go through. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. The academy system is failing, you can see just by the numbers, it’s completely failing.”
‘Your job is to look after children… not abuse them’
The system failed Noble in so many ways.
He was always a gifted footballer. From first kicking a ball with his dad, Mike, at the local park aged seven, to Wimbledon’s academy at eight. Wimbledon soon handed him a four-year contract.
But his knees showed signs of trouble aged 12, when he was diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter disease – intense pain when the kneecap is not fully developed and placed under too much pressure. Sometimes, he would walk up stairs and his legs would buckle underneath him.
He could not play for a year and when Wimbledon relocated to Milton Keynes it could have proved problematic, but Noble was so good that Fulham paid a small fee to sign him.
Still knee issues persisted and at 15, while away with Wales, he snapped his medial collateral ligament. When fit, he was great. Under manager Chris Coleman, when Fulham were an established Premier League side with players such as Danny Murphy and Jimmy Bullard, he would train often with the first team.
The club offered him a scholarship a year early, and convinced him to leave school before he had taken his GCSEs, with the promise of a professional contract three years later.
He was advised that an operation was not needed to fix the pain in his knees – he was young, it would heal – but medical staff started administering painkilling injections before training and matches. He was still a child. He went along with it: he just wanted to make it, remember, they all do.
“I would love to speak to some of these people and ask: Do you think that was acceptable?” he says. “I know boys who used to play with six strappings on their legs, for both knees, ankles. How can you look at a boy and say go out and train or play but let me just tape you up so you’re basically stuck together? There’s no care at all within the sport, especially at academy level, because there’s no light shone on it.”
Then he became aware of the threats and bullying. Young players are unable to sign with an agent until the year they turn 16. Shortly before then, a senior Fulham staff member told Noble he was not allowed an agent but that if he got one it had to be their recommendation.
Noble was stunned. Sure enough, he soon received offers of representation. He was threatened again. Noble explained he did not feel comfortable with that. He was training with the first team and was warned he would be dragged down to the youth team, or not play at all.
“As a young boy I didn’t think it could be true. For the next eight weeks I didn’t kick a ball. I wasn’t allowed to train, I wasn’t allowed to play.”
The staff member is no longer at Fulham but is still working in football. “That’s even more harrowing for me,” Noble says. “I have a friend who’s an agent who comes across him sometimes and went through the same thing as me. He says it brings so much trauma back for him when he has to deal with him.
“I couldn’t for the longest time comprehend that there is a man like that in charge of looking after children. That’s your job, to look after children, not threaten them, not abuse them.”
‘It’s a horrible environment to be in’
It gets worse. “We lost three or four games in a row and they said all of us had bad attitudes. The only ones that could train turned out to be the white guys. We had eight black boys in our team, the black boys in the afternoon would have to sit in the changing room while the three or four white guys would go out and train with the reserves.
“They wouldn’t allow us to have lunch in the canteen, so made us sit in this dirty changing room after everyone had used it. There was mud everywhere and they would just put sandwiches on a tray on the floor for us to eat. That happened for two months.
“Who do you complain to when something like that happens? Who do you tell that story to? The people you tell that story to are the people who’re doing it.”
Noble turned to his dad, who called the club and tried to complain. “They said it’s a punishment for them. It’s bullying – complete bullying. It’s a horrible environment to be in where you’re scared. I would tremble in the toilet. If I saw him walking down the hall I’d not want to pass him, see him, because he’s going to make me feel as if I’ve done something wrong.”
Noble persisted, kept on trying, training, working hard, doing what he was told, playing through the pain. Yet as the promised professional contract loomed within reach, he was informed he had severe tendonitis in both knees and required double knee surgery. Noble believes the injuries were “due to all these injections and painkillers they’d been giving me”.
‘Get lost, you’re not good enough’
What happened next was devastating: Fulham refused to pay for the treatment, explaining that he was coming to the end of his scholarship deal and would not receive a new one. “I had to pay for my own surgery and rehab. I didn’t even receive a phone call from them to see how I was getting on. No psychological help. No aftercare at all. No job opportunities, no internships, no courses. It’s like they just say to you: Get lost, you’re not good enough, see you later. I was 18. I had my double knee surgery at Parkside Hospital three days before my 19th birthday.”
Noble reached the lowest ebb of his life. He was no longer ‘the footballer’. He was a teenager with no qualifications and two shot knees. He had given everything – everything – to football and was cast aside like he was nothing. That is when he sought to block out the world with his duvet.
“I had depression, anxiety, all that trauma, it nearly killed me. I got so depressed. I became such a recluse, I didn’t want to talk to any of my friends. I wasn’t as close to my school friends because they were going out, to the cinema, for drinks and parties and socialising, going on holiday together. And I just couldn’t do that, I had to be in bed at 10pm, I had football at 8am, I had to do all the things they tell you to do. So I didn’t have a social life outside of football to turn to.
‘I don’t want to be here any more’
“While all these guys were going travelling, going to uni, getting qualifications, getting jobs, becoming young men, I was in my bed thinking: I’ve failed, I’m a loser. That was the lowest point in my life where I thought: Actually I don’t want to be here any more. I’ve let my dad down, I’ve left my whole family down, I’ve embarrassed everyone. My identity was gone.”
Noble went for low-paid jobs but kept being told he had no experience or qualifications, so he signed on for Jobseekers’ Allowance. Yet Noble was not as alone as he thought.
“As I got older and became even more of a recluse I started seeing it happening to my friends. I would see my football friends, people I’d been with every day for years, go through the same things. I’ve got two friends that tried to commit suicide from it. I’ve got another friend who has self-harmed and has scars all the way up his arms.”
Noble has five friends who ended up in prison. Abandoned by a game that took each of their young lives and squeezed until there was nothing left. No work experience, no qualifications, sometimes with a young family to feed. “They were the nicest boys you can meet,” he says. “They were backed into a corner.”
These are the stories football doesn’t want you to hear and the academy system hides behind their silence: protected by the simple fact that young footballers who have spent their entire lives in an environment of toxic masculinity will not discuss what rejection did to them.
“Imagine from eight years old, you’re promised and sold this dream. As I’ve got older I’ve understood it’s grooming. People don’t like that word because it sounds sexual. But for an adult to lie to children, to groom them into something and then all of a sudden sweep the rug from under their feet and then say: It’s your fault you didn’t make it, you didn’t work hard enough, you didn’t listen, you didn’t stay out on the training ground long enough, or get in early enough. It’s always an excuse that is used by the abuser: blame the victim. It’s an abuse scandal.
“I’ve learnt about toxic masculinity, it almost works as the perfect storm: these boys were abused, they were groomed, but they’re not going to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed, they’re not going to be able to come forward because as an industry we’re told they gave us an opportunity, it’s our fault. Players aren’t going to delve deeper because of this toxic masculinity that especially affects young men who think: I’m not going to admit that happened to me.”
Noble has never got over it. He still suffers from severe panic attacks, can still at random break out into hot sweats or uncontrollable shaking. “It’s only as I’ve got older I’ve learnt if I feel a certain way I need to speak about it. I’m traumatised.
“When you have a sport with so much money there can’t be the case that they don’t know what’s happened to these boys after they’re released. Not a phone call, not a ‘How are you getting on?’ or ‘We managed to get you an internship or a course’. It’s absolutely nothing. That’s not acceptable. I don’t want to fight the PFA or the FA, I’d just like them to admit this is happening and do something about it.”
Noble is doing something about it. He started rebuilding his life several years later, by chance handed a leaflet in the street about internships at Burberry and landed a job in product development. Now he has created a sportswear brand – Certified Sports – and £1 of every sale is donated to charities supporting ex-athletes with mental health problems.
“This is my story and this is how it starts for me, but as soon as I can say this is dealt with and there’s an aftercare system in place for ex-academy players then we can move on to something else.”
If any footballer has been through this and wants to talk, they can email ineedhelp@certifiedsports.co.uk
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3c7aDhg
Post a Comment