Let’s try and exorcise the depression demons

Depression is an inherently nebulous condition, one which gnaws away at the internal psyche, often disguising itself as an innocuous, temporary lapse before developing into a furtive killer. Sportsmen are immune from it though: they’re financially secure for life, they’re pampered by their industrious and canny agents and they should be able to handle castigation because supporters have “paid their money”.

Except they’re not. Yet despite the recent deaths of Gary Speed and Robert Enke, we continue to treat depression as an occasional, if insidious, force rather than the potentially catastrophic monster it actually is.

Speed’s suicide sent shockwaves around the world of sport and Britain at large, mainly because he was revered as the model professional and a highly capable young football manager on the cusp of leading Wales into a coruscating new dawn, unerringly cheerful and composed, never outwardly agitated. Yet this is exactly the point: depression can strike even the most unlikely of figures, emasculating even the highest achiever.

Ostensibly, Speed was a remarkably placid and unruffled character, serenely leading by example rather than Churchillian speeches. In his prime with Leeds United, Everton and Newcastle United, he was the engine that never spluttered or malfunctioned, but provided the understated yet pivotal foundation for more flamboyant players. Yet somewhere along the line illness consumed him to the extent where he felt he could not continue in life. Speed will be remembered as a remarkable human being and footballer, yet the utterly unexpected nature of his death, and the fact that nobody saw any indication that he was unhappy yet alone suicidal, cannot be swept under the carpet.

Sport is a two-faced animal: success is rewarded with adulation and worship, yet with failure comes persistent vocal dissatisfaction from the terraces and, unfalteringly, the accusation that sportsmen’s inflated wages mean they don’t care, that they don’t have problems at home. Sportsmen do not ascend to the pinnacle of their profession through laziness; they have to make a myriad of sacrifices and to live, in many ways, an abnormal life, hence they deserve the gains.

Fans watching from their seats don’t appreciate the perpetually fluctuating emotions in sport: individual success precipitates an outburst of cathartic exuberance, embodying everything that is captivating and alluring about sport, yet failure will result in unrelenting attacks from all angles – fans, media, the public, even coaches and chairmen. At the elite level, there is no middle ground, and in an age obsessed with instant gratification and result, no time for mediocrity.

Although Steve Kean, the Blackburn Rovers manager, has conducted himself with impeccable dignity, his emotions must swing between ecstasy when his struggling team achieve monumental success such as the victory at Old Trafford, and depths of despair when his face is plastered on threatening placards with the whole stadium calling for his head.

Yet because he carries the weight of responsibility as the lone man on the touchline, and because he is financially fortunate due to his elevated position, fans forget the fact that he is a father and husband. Fans forget that he will probably be awake at night, seeking an escape route from the ineffable abyss that is the relegation zone, trying to block out the ubiquitous mockery and genuinely threatening vitriol.

Nobody is suggesting that Kean is or will be depressed, but the misguided conception that sportsmen are machines without emotions, that for some reason they do not take pride in, or attribute significance to, their highly-coveted employment will undoubtedly lead to a continued negligence of the issue of depression.

Additionally, to whom do victims of depression turn? Not Geoffrey Boycott, it can safely be said, who responded to the news that Michael Yardy, the ex-England cricketer, had quit the cricket World Cup by suggesting that his depression was caused by his critical comments of his playing performance. Egotistical and selfish men like Boycott maintain archaic views of depression, even though, in his case, “I’m not a medical man; I can’t really comment on it”.

Maybe Boycott could have considered the fact that cricketers are constantly ferried off to different continents to play money-spinning yet often superfluous series, necessitating truncated and often painful absences from loved ones. Yet in an age when adrenaline-imbued sportsmen are said to be “in the zone” and “totally fixated on the next game”, the relentless, grinding nature of international sport is bound to cause exhaustion and stress, which can lead to depression. In dressing rooms, however, where “laddish” cultures are revered and adhered to for fear of social exclusion, discussion of this stress is taboo.

Leighton Baines, Everton’s left-back, was left at home for the 2010 World Cup for daring to suggest that not seeing his family for over a month would be difficult: his comment was interpreted as an intrinsic weakness rather than responsibly promulgating an issue which, in many other professions, would be perfectly reasonable.

Yet sportsmen, of course, should have a tunnel vision eliminating any familial responsibility, and if they don’t, they’re simply not “mentally strong enough”. Although well-intentioned, the buzzwords “mental toughness” impede the solving of this problem, for they fail to distinguish between illness and weakness – and sportsmen would rather be dangerously ill than impugned by the media. And how can this be right?

The issue of depression, then, is very complex and very dangerous. By continuing to be ignorant of it, however, we genuinely risk losing not just perfectly honed athletes, defined by price tags and salaries, but human beings who have given everything to be the best they can be as mothers, fathers, husbands and team-mates. If we fail to consider what depression can do and how it can impact on highly vulnerable sportspeople, it could develop into something very nasty indeed.