It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not: Why footballing success is not a magic bullet

By Tom Simmonds. The PFA revealed last week that they believe approximately 700 players a year, the majority of whom are under 21, are released by clubs to an uncertain future. This piece also revealed the alarming statistic that 130 former footballers are currently in prison. Oshor Williams of the PFA’s education department said that “the attrition rate is 75% (of young players leaving football) or above”. While this is an issue of concern, we need to be careful about assuming that players who ‘make it’ are immune from such travails.

Footballing success is not a magic panacea that can salve deep-rooted emotional issues. All Blue Daze’s excellent blog on Paul Gascoigne’s current condition shows that carving out a successful career can be a double-edged sword. It can encourage players to push emotional problems to the right during their careers.

Some tipping points come during big careers. This is something that former England captain Tony Adams recognised and spoke of in his autobiography, Addicted. Adams’ reflection that “All my pats on the back came from being Tony the footballer. Tony the person did not like himself”. He was in the same space Gascoigne always was; his self-actualisation and self-esteem were tethered only to his on-pitch deeds.

An interesting similarity between last week’s revelations and the way in which Adams was attempting to drown his demons in drink in the 80s and 90s came in a quote from Woking midfielder, Josh Payne, formerly a star of West Ham’s youth team. Payne, who has served a prison sentence for ABH and assault, told the BBC: “I’d love so much for clubs to have people to talk to the young players. I wish I’d had somebody”.

Payne’s revelation suggests a tendency towards shying away from discussing emotional issues still exists within football, in line with the outmoded and dangerous cultural norm that men should be ‘strong and silent’. That is not to suggest that Payne’s experience is the norm, but it does raise a question about how well clubs are supporting their players emotionally.

Another clue that this might still be the case lies in the trend towards footballers writing confessional autobiographies in recent years, of which Adams’ was one of the first. ‘Addicted’ was succeeded by the likes of Stan Collymore’s ‘Tackling My Demons’ , Tony Cascarino’s ‘Full Time’ and Paul McGrath’s ‘Back from the Brink’, all of which contain long passages of unsparing self-criticism. These autobiographies, and the many like them which continue to follow, read like large single doses of catharsis, which their authors have bottled up for decades; it’s an opportunity to expurgate themselves in print in a manner that suggests there was an absence of safe places for them to do so while they were playing.

This begs the inevitable question of what more football can be doing to help players navigate the emotional problems that will arise whether they have stellar, middling, anonymous or no career in football? Adams has already given us the biggest clue – players must not be made to feel like football is their only chance of living a fulfilling life. The pitfalls of self-esteem being so tied up in a single aspect of a personality (and this is not exclusive to football) is corrosive, and will catch up with anybody, no matter how resilient, when the music stops. The production of rounded individuals rather than athletes who are judged primarily by their current and future monetary values in a distorted market has to be a priority for academies. It would at least raise the chances of players who find their careers at an end coming up with a more positive answer to the question ‘what now’?

Do you have any examples of former players who have carved successful lives outside of football? 

Read more from Tom Simmonds here!

Follow @TallulahonEarth