Ashley Cole is travelling around the UK to grassroots football clubs that are supporting players through struggles with their mental health.
He has visited Denny, a small town in Falkirk, to speak with players from a team established to help obese men with mental health problems. Cole met Gary Thorn, who founded Denny Warriors in 2020 out of a desire to play football again but believing he would not be accepted by a Sunday League side. After posting the idea on Facebook one Friday night, the replies exploded with interest. And Denny Warriors was formed: where men can get fit and talk about what is troubling them.
Cole’s next stop was Sheffield, home to Brunsmeer Awareness Ladies, a football team for women who have struggled with their wellbeing and mental health. It’s where he met Heather, who used football to deal with post-natal depression and was one of the five to turn up at the first session of a now thriving community.
Cole’s journey is part of a CALM and Carling campaign – called More Than a Game – which hopes to normalise the idea of speaking about mental health and show how beneficial football can be. And it is through this campaign that Cole, one of English football’s most successful defenders, has agreed to speak with i about mental health and football.
He is winner of three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups, the Uefa Champions League and Europa League in spells at Arsenal and Chelsea. He played 107 times for England, in three World Cups and two European Championships, and it is not hyperbolic to argue he was, at one stage, the best left-back in the world.
It is intriguing, then, to hear his reaction when asked if he faced difficulties with his own mental health during his playing career. He says “the public will never know” what truly goes on in the private lives of the famous, but he is not entirely sure if what he experienced would be classed as a mental health struggle for the simple reason that nobody talked about it at the clubs he played for back then.
“Mental health when I was playing, it wasn’t a thing,” he says. “I probably did struggle but didn’t recognise it at the time.” He cites “injuries” and “bad press” as times when things might have got to him. Cole, now 40, had a fractious relationship with the press one that gave him a reputation as a “cheater” and a “bad guy” and he doesn’t often grand interview time to newspaper journalists. Yet speaking to people who worked with him back then, they recall a young guy thrust into celebrity whose unfair reputation preceded him. One who was incredibly down-to-earth once he felt safe enough to let his guard down.
Through it all, Cole found his own ways to deal with the pressures. “The generation I came up with, you had to get on with it. I felt my safe haven was being on the football pitch, doing what I love and what I thought I was really good at. That was where I found peace. I tried to never think negative, it was all positive: let me get on the pitch and play football. That was my go-to, getting back on the pitch.
“We didn’t take care of our mental health. Now players and athletes are really taking time out and saying they need to start thinking about themselves and to look after themselves first and foremost. Whereas back in my day I don’t think you could get away with that.
“Now, people are more open to that and understanding. We’ve definitely all gone through different pathways and journeys, we’ve had our own fight with mental health or whatever situation it is. I do think it’s for the better now. Mental health affects people in different ways, in different stages, it’s very hard to identify it if no one speaks to you about it. Athletes are benefiting now because they’re more open to listening and people are more open to sit down and take time out to listen to other people, which I think is great.”
People would say “he’s weak” or “he doesn’t want it enough” if the notion was even tentatively entertained that a player was struggling with life, Cole explains. It was “bad mouthing someone when, ultimately, they’ve been dealing with something deep inside that could’ve been helped. In terms of my generation it was basically: you get on with it.”
This might sound like something out of the 1960s, yet Cole played for two decades from 1999: eventually leaving the Premier League for Roma, in Italy, then US side LA Galaxy, before ending his career in 2019 with a Championship promotion push with his old team-mate Frank Lampard then manager at Derby County.
Even so, Cole would not switch places with the more wellbeing-aware generation of today, he says. “Is it better? For sure, it’s better. Maybe when players back in my day had dark moments they didn’t have someone to speak to. But now loads of people are constantly asking, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’
“I was happy to play football, go home, play golf or whatever, and come back the next day and play football again. I used to keep stuff to myself. That was me. I’d play computer, that’s where I found my peace and my safe space.”
Nonetheless, his experiences as a player have not put him off continuing to work in football. He is, instead, using them to shape his own identity as a coach and, eventually, a manager. He is currently completing his Uefa coaching badges, is a coach with Chelsea’s Under 15s and assistant to England Under 21 manager Lee Carsley.
I ask Cole about the plethora of pressures placed on young footballers today that have caused many former and current academy players to discuss the anxiety and depression – and in some cases suicide attempts – that were caused by their experiences.
Cole describes academy football as “like a cauldron” – the social media pressures, the intense commitment to a club from a young age, expectations from family. And how in his day even those who went on to become the very best stayed with Sunday League sides for several years before committing full-time to a professional club. Unlike today, when many have played for their club for a decade by the time they hit 18 years old.
“Before, younger players – especially in my case – I was playing for three teams: for Arsenal, my Sunday League team and in a mid-week league. I had different people and environments to be around. Now it’s like a cauldron for these kids.
“At these academies at young ages they’re doing full-time school, they don’t see the outside world, they have so much pressure to do the school work, develop and learn and try to be the best they can as a player.
“And then the other pressures from the outside world, in terms of living up to their expectations. There might be family members pushing players. Sometimes it’s not about the player – it’s about the parent’s life and how they see that going. At Chelsea we are 100 per cent aware. We do safeguarding, player care. We understand that and we really try to help the boys as much as we can in terms of building support.”
Cole has learned about Mental Health First Aid training – that enables those qualified to spot signs of mental health decline in others and know where to send them for help – and believes football coaches should all take the course. But, equally, he considers his generation of former-players-turned-manager – his former England team-mates Steven Gerrard and Lampard are also forging successful careers – are more in tune with the next generation of players.
“Now there’s a new generation of coaches and new generation of managers where a lot of ex-players are becoming managers and coaches and we know what players need and the support is there,” he says. “Maybe it’s not just the manager but people around the manager – the support maybe wasn’t there for them before.
“Now there’s player care, you can just Google something, look on the internet and social media. Or let me ask my coach because they’ve not long retired and they get it. That’s how I feel. I can speak to the players because I’ve been there, I really understand it, I know the pressures and expectations from everyone – and yourself as a player. It’s trying to manage that.
“Some players show a lot of insecurities. They might not be playing every week, they need to speak to people. Just making sure you are a coach who is aware of that and always willing and ready to engage, whether it’s a little conversation down a corridor, really making the players feel safe and happy and in an environment where they feel safe if they need to speak to you about any issues or feelings they have.”
He adds: “Understanding not everyone is the same, people might not be able to take criticism like maybe I took criticism. It was like water off a duck’s back to me, but some people can’t handle that, a lot of players now want to be loved, they want to be seen in a good light. That’s what us as coaches, we’ve got to be really careful with how we speak to and manage these kids.”
‘All football coaches need mental health training’
Cole, one of English football’s most successful defenders, has added his significant voice to calls for football coaches to take mental health awareness training to help spot signs of struggles in players.
Currently an Under 15 coach at Chelsea and assistant to England Under 21 manager Lee Carsley, Cole believes his three years in youth coaching have made him aware how important mental health and wellbeing support is for young footballers.
In August, Philip Mitchell, a father whose son took his own life after his football career was cut short by injury, insisted that all coaches should have mandatory training to spot the signs of mental health deterioration in players.
“Being a coach I’ve actually understood that I need mental health training,” Cole, 40, says. “We’re dealing with so many young kids, and not just young kids but in my context at the moment I’m working with young players and at times coaches sometimes assume these players might be lazy, or don’t want it as much, but you never know what’s going on behind the scenes.
“Everyone has their different struggles, or challenges they really have to face, it’s important that people are qualified and understand how to see signals. They might not be lazy, there might be something going on mentally with them that we could help, or it’s just a conversation they need.”
Cole, who won 16 trophies at Arsenal and Chelsea and 107 caps for England, is travelling around the UK visiting grassroots clubs that are supporting people with their mental health as part of the More Than a Game campaign, run by mental health charity CALM and Carling. They provide Mental Health First Aid training and want to normalise discussing mental health.
“Coaches getting to have mental health training and really understanding to spot the signs I think, for sure, should be in football,” Cole says. “People have different struggles in life and how do we spot that and identify that? It’s very difficult if someone wants to shut up shop and not be open to having a conversation.
“If we can spot the signs without actually having the conversation to start it, I think it’s going to benefit everyone. And hopefully you get players and people willing to open up and give a little back, because ultimately everyone needs support, everyone needs a little bit of help, and it might just be that one conversation.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3E42HrM
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