Tag Archives: Leeds United

Carlisle reaches out after taming his demons

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Not a day passes where Clarke Carlisle does not think about 22 December 2014. On that wet, gloomy morning he stepped in front of a lorry travelling at around 60mph on the A64 in North Yorkshire. 

Having been charged with drink-driving just hours earlier, the former Queens Park Rangers and Burnley defender had hit rock bottom. No hope remained. The only way out was to end his life.

Two years after his near-death experience, the first thing that strikes you when speaking to the one-time chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association is how open he is when discussing his suicide attempt.

The 37-year-old says his outlook is now more positive, but admits that life is still far from perfect. He still has dark times but the worst has passed and now his main focus is discussing these issues with the wider public.

“Things are incredible right now but that doesn’t mean life is a bed of roses,” he says.

“What it means is that whenever pressures or stresses come on in my life or when I get uncomfortable emotions like sadness, anxiety or anger, I now know how to cope with them and process them.

“I know how to handle that in a constructive manner so on a day to day basis, life is very good.”

Depression

Many factors contributed to Carlisle’s fragile state of mind but the main one was struggling to adjust to retirement from football.

Although he suffered from depression throughout his career, when he finished his career at Northampton Town in 2013 aged 34, he no longer had a sense of purpose or direction in life.

“There are a lot of outside factors that can contribute to a deepening depression,” admits the Lancastrian.

“One of the factors for me was the transition from playing football and going into another industry. Even though I had another job lined up and I went straight into broadcasting with ITV, the loss of structure and the loss of identity was hard for me.

“When you’re an elite athlete, every day has a strong goal and focus, but when I came out of that and I was working in broadcasting, I was only contracted to do 36 days a year, which even if it was an overnight stay it was 72 days a year.

“I had no structure in what to do and even if I did fill that time with going for a run or anything like that, it wasn’t something that contributed to a greater goal.”

Carlisle says being part of an industry which kept reminding him of the one he had left was also not particularly helpful.

“I was commentating on players and I knew I was better than them or I could do just as good as job as them.

“There was a lot of feelings of failure that came around that and that was very tough to deal with, plus the standard pressures of bills to pay and the loss of income.

“The fundamental factor was that I didn’t have a coping mechanism. I didn’t have a way to understand what those stresses were and how to process them in a constructive manner. I was basically running away in the destructive way that I used to.”

Aftermath 

Life after his suicide attempt and deepening depression was difficult for Carlisle’s friends and family, a situation which in hindsight he calls “disgusting”.

“It’s incredibly hard to articulate the [impact] it had on my wife when I was married at the time, my children, my parents and on my siblings,” he said.

“All the old coping strategies like getting drunk or hiding or isolation, they are no longer a part of my life”

“They were coming to visit me in hospital to offer me love and support but I was still there telling them I wanted to die.

“It’s not as though I immediately changed my mindset and my approach around life as soon as I got into hospital.

“There was a long period of purgatory where I was in that frame of mind that I wanted to kill myself. The impact on those around me was disgusting.

“Going through psychiatric hospitals was hard but being there for six weeks was incredibly important to start the beginning of me turning that journey around.”

Handling depression 

The man named as Britain’s Brainiest Footballer in 2002 after appearing on a TV quiz says his progression from running away to now confronting his problems is a big factor in his recovery.

“I was an emotional retard when I went to psychiatric hospital,” he admits. “However, the journey that I have gone on since has been all about understanding myself.

“I now understand the individual emotions that I’m feeling and I understand that I need to feel them, and I need to be able to be at ease with those emotions.

“When I’m feeling incredibly sad or fearful or anxious, I now know what to do in order to help me get through that. It might be going and talking to someone or it might be calming and centering myself by using prayers or meditation.

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel or I hide or avoid emotions, it means I now understand and acknowledge them and I meet them face on and that’s made such a huge difference to my life.

“All the old coping strategies like getting drunk or hiding or isolation, they are no longer a part of my life because I know they aren’t necessary.”

Lack of understanding 

In the past, sport has been criticised for failing to understand depression, and Carlisle says the main reason why people within football take physical injuries more seriously is down to an absence of awareness.

“There is a distinct lack of understanding but it’s just not in the game, it’s in society in general,” claims the former England U21 player.

“Even though things are being done to address the issue, the fundamental knowledge in how to support someone in these situations is lacking across all industries. It isn’t football’s fault, it’s a societal problem.

“Football has the money, the time and the resources to be able to create a support template that other industries could adopt. They need to look after the health and safety of their employees at the workplace.

“People don’t engage and understand what mental health is. One of the factors is that it’s intangible. A broken leg is visible whereas with mental health issues, it’s the mind that is injured but it’s not something that can be seen.

“It is all about basic understanding and education. The way we can try and change that is by educating children so when they grow up and become the decision makers, they will know how to make far more informed decisions about situations and circumstances that are relevant to sufferers.”

Support network 

Although his life will continue to have good and bad moments, Carlisle is now aware on how to face his problems head on.

He speaks at awareness events for many charities, but his own foundation the Clarke Carlisle Foundation for Dual Diagnosis is continuing to help others with mental health issues.

“You don’t have to stand up and tell the world… but it is mandatory that you tell somebody”

“By being public about it and putting support mechanisms out there, it’s given people permission to acknowledge what is going on in their lives and has given them a chance to seek support and seek an emphatic ear,” he explained.

“It’s wonderful but it’s also good for me because as much as I’m helping others, it’s helping me because it normalises with what I’m going through as well. The illness itself makes people believe that they don’t have no one to speak to and no one wants to listen but that is utter rubbish.

“There is always people out there, whether it be your GP or charities etc, but there are so many people out there who want to listen and want to help and who can help.

“My advice would be: you don’t have to stand up and tell the world and you don’t have to tell everybody, but it is mandatory that you tell somebody. It’s from there that you can begin to engage with a support pathway.”

Follow Clarke Carlisle on Twitter @CCforDD 

In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255

Two fingers to the establishment: Reviewing ‘A Yorkshire Tragedy’

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Award-winning journalist Anthony Clavane is right to have a chip on his shoulder over what he calls ‘a culture of neglect’. Having been raised in Leeds and worked in the capital, he is all too familiar with the increasingly glaring north-south divide in Britain. 

In his new book A Yorkshire Tragedy, he illustrates in heartbreaking detail the extent to which a formerly industrial and sporting powerhouse has been rendered a national afterthought.

Moreover, the hollowing out of working classes, so integral to Yorkshire’s character and communities, has transformed once bustling areas into ghost towns.

“I’m most upset by the idea that the working classes are being cut off from leisure,” reveals Clavane.

The economic growth enjoyed alongside the industrial revolution during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Clavane argues, was driven by a local trinity of home, work and leisure.

In Hull, St Andrew’s Dock, the Boulevard and Hessle Road were pillars of communalism, binding players and workers together in the name of advancement by co-operation.

Expression of community

Workers felt that they played a significant role in local life, and that local teams embodied a spirit not quite seen in a “less communal and more atomised” London.

yorkshire-tragedy“If you look at sport, where was it invented? In the north,” explains Clavane. “And which communities did it emerge from?

“The very first modern football club was in Sheffield. Modern sport and cricket was played in Sheffield and Leeds and came out of the industrial working classes.

“What I’m arguing is that these industrial areas – which grew directly as a result of industry – sport was their expression of community.

“When Featherstone won the Rugby League Challenge Cup in 1983, most of their players were miners. They had just lifted the trophy in Wembley, millions watched it, and two mornings later they were down the mines.

“Could you imagine Lionel Messi or Wayne Rooney going to the mines?”

The decline of Leeds United, once a formidable top-flight force, is also particularly telling.

Leeds have spent the majority of the last decade sitting precariously below the elite tier of English football, and Clavane jokingly expresses his frustration.

“It upsets me that Leeds United are not the greatest team the world has ever seen any more.”

Under chairman Peter Ridsdale, Leeds encountered severe financial problems, including large loans which could only be repaid by selling key players.

The resulting implosion sent the club crashing into League One within just a few years, seemingly wiping clean all the progress that had been made in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Blame game

The Hillsborough disaster of 1989, too, was an incident so tragic that in many ways it was microcosmic of the marginalisation of Yorkshire.

Families and friends of the 96 victims, knowing full well what had happened that day, were ignored and repeatedly demonised by a largely ignorant London media.

The Sun, in particular, is infamous for the blame game it played in the ensuing weeks. The stadium’s chequered safety record was not addressed sufficiently, as it may well have been had it been located in London, echoing the horrific fire at Bradford just four years earlier.

“Very simply, up until 1989, Hillsborough was a symbol of ambition, aspiration and majestic football because the stadium was the Wembley of the north.

“After ’89 it became a symbol of death and everything bad about football and society,” Clavane points out, clearly in saddened agreement with my suggestion that it was emblematic of Yorkshire as a whole.

Condescending neighbour

A Yorkshire Tragedy is alone worth reading for the rich history it unearths.

Drawing upon a wealth of sporting and political knowledge, as well as important critiques of the cultural effects of neo-liberal capitalism, Clavane can best be commended for capturing the rancorous nature of the lament felt by a substantial part of Yorkshire’s working class.

“Clavane notices an ominous connection between neglect and Yorkshire’s rejection of the political status quo on June 23rd this year”

There is no denying their ostracism from the centre of the political consensus. Government funding (or lack thereof) tends not to be afforded to worthy northern programmes and the media, too, seem fixated with events in London.

“There has always been a certain ‘chippiness’ towards the south, or at least the idea of the south as a condescending neighbour that sucks in the north’s skill, goods and talent,” writes Clavane, astutely.

Globalised capitalism, of which the author believes there exists a socially responsible version, has made a mockery of the very values which made Yorkshire a 19th and 20th century powerhouse

Beginning in the Thatcher years of the 1980s, strong social principles of togetherness and collectivism were thrown out, with the individual placed before the community.

Disenfranchised

‘Right to buy’ increased homelessness throughout Yorkshire, the closing down of mines, decline of the fishing industry and outsourcing of factory work broke that spirited link between work and play, and left many in the north unable to reap the rewards of the south’s economic growth.

A Yorkshire Tragedy reaches out to those who have been left behind and reminds them that they are loved. It tells the disenfranchised men and women of Yorkshire that they are a cherished part of Britain, with a rich and respectable history.

“Sport is unpredictable, and these things go in cycles. But I don’t see the downward cycle coming back up”

Like me, Clavane notices an ominous connection between neglect and Yorkshire’s rejection of the political status quo on June 23rd this year. “What I think has happened is that whole swathes of the country have got chips on their shoulder over being left behind and betrayed, and that to me could help to explain the Brexit vote.

“These deep-rooted, long-standing communities have gone into decline and they’ve stuck two fingers up to the establishment and they will continue to do so.

On the question of an upturn in fortunes, Clavane is characteristically unmoved

“I’m a glass half empty man, so not very. It’s very strange. If I was writing about the decline of the economy or the film industry, you can forecast a trend. But let’s say Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday go up, all of a sudden my theory is buggered. That’s what sport is, it’s unpredictable, and these things go in cycles. But I don’t see the downward cycle coming back up.”

Yorkshire has been left behind. Of that there is no question. The author was understandably “very moved and angry by the absence of communities, shockingly impoverished” while writing his book. If only the political elite had an ounce of his consideration.

A Yorkshire Tragedy: The Rise and Fall of a Sporting Powerhouse, Quercus, £16.99. Feature image courtesy of the72.co.uk

Leeds United – fallen giants

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‘We’re not famous anymore’ was the chant ringing around Brighton Station as Leeds fans headed for home.

They had just witnessed their team being torn apart by the Seagulls in embarrassing fashion, conceding four goals in 38 first-half minutes in the teams’ recent Championship encounter at the Amex Arena.

Since playing in the Uefa Champions League at the turn of the millennium, as their teams’ fortunes have gone into decline over the last 15 years, so have Leeds fans’ chants, becoming more and more negative. ‘You’re nothing special, we get beat every week,’ is this season’s favourite.

Admittedly, it made a pleasant change from hearing them bang on about their old European exploits at a volume which could probably be heard across the Channel.

Evidently, some people still regard Leeds as a Premier League club in spirit if not reality – but having been the Manchester City of the early 90s, they have become lost in the modern footballing era.

Not too long ago, Leeds were up there challenging the best both at home and on the continent, but look at them now; a club who once sat at Europe’s top table now regarded as an easy three points by teams in the lower reaches of the Championship.

Hugely promising

Parc des Princes in Paris must seem a long way away now for the once-mighty Whites. That was the scene of Leeds’ biggest ever match, the 1975 European Cup Final against Bayern Munich, but the side who were all-conquering in English domestic football fell just short, going down 2-0.

“Seasons of overstretching, or as chairman Peter Ridsdale infamously called it, ‘living the dream’, finally caught up with Leeds”

In the early 90s, it looked like the glory days might be back at Elland Road, as manager Howard Wilkinson and the inspirational Eric Cantona guided them to glory in the last-ever season of the old Division One in 1991-92, before the establishment of the Premier League.

George Graham soon replaced Wilkinson, but it was under their next manager, David O’Leary, that things got even better, as Leeds built a hugely promising young squad and reached the semi-finals of both the Champions League and Uefa Cup.

But success on the pitch was being funded by deals off it which would come to threaten the club’s very existence.

Overspent

Seasons of overstretching, or as chairman Peter Ridsdale infamously called it, ‘living the dream’, finally caught up with Leeds in March 2002, when they announced £13.8m pre-tax losses for the previous year, a situation only made worse by their failure to quality for Europe.

“The club’s financial downfall loomed and, with turmoil both in the boardroom and dug-out, its foundations had gone from concrete to sand”

Within three years of losing out on the champions league spot, Leeds were set to self-destruct, they had chronically overspent in the summer and the giant was ready to topple.

Terry Venables succeeded O’Leary as manager in July 2002, but it was not to be for the former Barcelona and England coach, who lasted less than one season as the team fell down the Premier League table.

Peter Reid took up the reins to rescue the season but even though he started the following campaign strongly, he was eventually sacked the following season. After 13 years, at the end of the 2003-04 season, the Whites fell out of English football’s top flight. They have not been back since.

The club’s financial downfall loomed and, with turmoil both in the boardroom and dug-out, its foundations had gone from concrete to sand.

Administration

Leeds started offloading players in the summer of 2002, with Rio Ferdinand moving to Manchester United for £30m, then Jonathan Woodgate leaving for Newcastle for 9m, Robbie Keane heading to Tottenham for 7m and Robbie Fowler switching to Manchester City for 6m.

“Club and supporters have had a huge reality check, and one which shows no sign of coming to an end any time soon”

Leeds also sold their training ground and Elland Road Stadium in 2004-2005 seasons to try and make a dent in their mountain of debt.

Former Chelsea chairman Ken Bates bought 50% of the club in January 2005 for an estimated £10m, but even he could not stop Leeds going into administration in 2007, a move which cost them 10 points and consigned them to relegation to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history.

Their first two seasons in League One saw them reach the play-offs twice only to miss out on promotion, but it was a case of third time lucky in 2009-10 as, under manager Simon Grayson, they finished runners-up and secured promotion back to the Championship.

That season also saw a memorable FA Cup third-round win over old rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford. At long last, things looked to be improving for Leeds.

Outbursts

But when Grayson failed to take the club back to the Premier League, he was duly off-loaded in February 2012, since when Leeds have tried seven different managers – including former Academy boss Neil Redfearn on three different occasions – without any significant improvement.

The arrival of current owner, Italian Massimo Cellino, was welcomed by many Leeds fans as a sign that finally someone with significant financial backing was coming to their aid, but his bizarre personal outbursts and repeated hiring and firing of managers to no great effect have only antagonised supporters even more.

With the end of the current season in sight and manager Steve Evans in charge since October, Leeds currently lie 16th in the Championship. Another season outside England’s football elite beckons for Leeds and their fans.

Over the last 20 years, both club and supporters have had a huge reality check, and one which shows no sign of coming to an end any time soon.

Leeds misses and desperately needs the Premier League – but is the feeling reciprocated? Leeds’ long-suffering fans will have to wait a while longer before they find out if their club is welcomed back.

Photo by Chris Robertshaw via Flickr Creative Commons