It is at about the 20-minute mark of a fascinating hour and a half spent with Kevin Ellison that the interview starts to veer down a very different road.
The M6 to be precise, and the central reservation Ellison admits that a decade ago, one cold morning on the way to training at Morecambe, he considered swerving his car into at 90mph.
“I was really suffering, I was broken inside. I was alone in the car, having these uncontrollable thoughts. I just said to myself, if I do it surely the world will be a better place,” he tells i.
Until last year, 43-year-old Ellison – then at Newport County – was the oldest active professional footballer in the Football League. Most fans probably know him as the bald-headed “horrible so-and-so” who made a habit of shaking up defences in League One and Two, or whose celebration in the face of Derek Adams after scoring against the Morecambe manager who froze him out went viral a couple of years ago.
But there is so much more to his story, not least a decade-long battle with his mental health demons that he has turned into an inspiring mission to help others in his situation. “It was part of my game on the pitch that I was a horrible so-and-so. But when I came home I was snappy with my ex-partner, my kids,” he says. “Why did I act the way I did? I didn’t know at the time I was suffering.”
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Personal and family trauma played their part. But the pressure of football – of operating with 12 month contracts, playing with injuries, the creeping anxiety of whether it would be renewed – “chipped away” at him.
“I went to some anger management classes, paying myself through it, coming away with DVDs. It’d be fine for a couple of months but then I’d relapse,” he says.
“I didn’t realise my anger was part of a cog. I was suffering, isolating myself, I didn’t want to spend time with loved ones. When I look at it now it was very daunting – I was in a bad place.”
The spark for getting help was seeing a tweet by fellow pro Mark Connolly opening up about his own struggles. It struck a chord. Ellison wept reading it before reaching out.
“Mark [Connolly] was like: ‘How can you be like that? Everyone hates playing against you!’ I now realise it was a mask, me batting off my insecurities and my feelings and depression.”
Ellison was offered medication but went down another route. He’s now a passionate advocate of yoga but more importantly, he wants to get people talking.
When his emotional social media post went live, he says the reaction from football was “unbelievable”. Ex-teammates and supporters got in touch, some to offer support and some seeking it. Even his own family were surprised.
He’s also a firm believer that football needs to change. “There is a lot of insecurities in football. It’s not a nice environment,” he says.
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“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve probably played a part in that in my 25 years of being a pro. I’ve assessed myself since coming out of the other side of it, speaking about my mental health. I understand more about my actions now – just verbal stuff in the dressing room – but still it’s a form of bullying.
“The environment I’d want to create if I go into coaching is a happy environment where people want to enjoy their football.”
The game, belatedly, is trying to do more to confront its issues. The Professional Footballers’ Association – the players’ union – established a new player’s board on to which Ellison was voted last year. They are encouraging players to talk more, so they don’t reach the point Ellison did.
“It’s in almost every dressing room. I’ve seen lads being sick on the pitch. I used to think they must have eaten something dodgy but it’s anxiety,” he says. “I try to speak out now to try and help people. It wasn’t something I set out to do but if I can help one person, it’s worth it.”
Now he has the distinction of being one of the oldest players in the game, one of a clutch of 40-somethings in the football pyramid.
He had the option to stay in the league with Newport, who offered him a coaching role but opted to move down the leagues with ambitious Northern Premier club Warrington Rylands instead. “I’ve still got the fire in my belly. I don’t want to go through the motions, I wanted to go somewhere I could play and achieve things. I’m 43 but I’m still learning every day,” he said.
“That was part of the reason I refused the contract at Newport. Maybe they thought I couldn’t do it for the 90 minutes but I know I can affect games in certain ways. When that goes I know it’s time to pack it in.”
He laughs as he admits to googling Kazuyoshi Miura, the 55-year-old who is still going strong in Japan’s fourth division after starting his career in 1982.
He’s doing coaching badges in preparation for the next step but having come through the non-league route, balancing football with part-time work as a delivery driver and builder, he says he’s in no rush to let go of the “buzz” of playing.
“For a while I couldn’t give myself credit for what I’d achieved in my career. I wasn’t in the right headspace. But it’s only the last few years where I think ‘You’ve done all right for yourself’.”
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