Tackling the Stigma: Sky Sports activities documentary investigates soccer’s points with psychological well being | Soccer Information

Sky Sports activities has produced a documentary, Tackling the Stigma, in help of Psychological Well being Consciousness Week 2023.

The three-part, hour-long deep dive, narrated by Martin Tyler, investigates soccer’s points with psychological well being, exploring what golf equipment and gamers are doing to alter the narrative round males’s psychological well being.

In a sequence of interviews performed by Patrick Davidson, the primary of their sort by high stage footballers, the documentary highlights how far the trade has modified within the final decade.

Talking in depth with present Premier League gamers Harry Kane, Ben Chilwell and Jordan Pickford, we uncover how they handle their wellbeing. We additionally hear from former gamers Lee Hendrie and Kieron Dyer on how they suffered throughout their careers, with little remedy or help obtainable.

Former Aston Villa midfielder Hendrie, who says his psychological well being issues started in his youth when his mother and father cut up up, tried to take his personal life in August 2010 and July the next yr after struggling with melancholy.

His psychological well being points got here to a head after a few of his properties had been repossessed, together with the house he purchased for his mom, and his profession was reaching its finish, all whereas he was in the course of a divorce.

“It brings up rather a lot for me,” Hendrie advised Sky Sports activities. “I felt all the things was beginning to collapse and fall on high of me.

“Mum had all the time been there. My story as a child was of eager to be a footballer after which purchase Mum and Dad a home and a automobile – to have good issues.

“To have that taken away from Mum. I keep in mind seeing her face once I first received her the home, she was simply completely happy and I hadn’t seen her that completely happy for years. To take that away and to see her the best way she was, it was heartbreaking.

“It is essentially the most troublesome place I’ve ever been in. It is exhausting to explain the ideas and the one approach I felt I may get away from this was that if I am not within the equation everybody goes to recover from me not being right here.

“I wasn’t fascinated about leaving the youngsters and my spouse, or leaving her in such a large number.”

Former Newcastle and England midfielder Dyer suffered sexual abuse as a baby and held onto his secret for 28 years earlier than sharing his trauma with the world.

Dyer did his greatest to masks his ache when he was enjoying soccer professionally by way of the best way he carried himself and admits “quite a lot of it was bravado”.

“I used to be a really weak child and I took these traits into being a person who could not present weak spot or worry as a result of I did not need to be that weak little boy that was taken benefit of,” Dyer advised Sky Sports activities.

“Deep down in my psyche there was somebody who needed to be heard and somebody who needed to be helped and thankfully for me, I lastly received that assist.

“It was after my profession had completed not whereas it was going. I actually consider my profession would’ve taken off in a special course [If I had got help while playing].”

Different contributors embody The PFA’s Director of Participant Wellbeing Dr Michael Bennett, Dr Michael Caulfield, Brentford Chief Psychologist, Thomas Frank and Hayley Jarvis from Thoughts.

One in eight males within the UK are stated to endure from a “widespread psychological well being downside” equivalent to melancholy or nervousness.

Solely 30 per cent of individuals in speaking remedy are male, but 75 per cent of all suicides within the nation are males. As many as one in ten males have considered taking their very own lives.

Moreover, in response to statistics from psychological well being charity Thoughts, suicide is the largest killer of males below 45.

We hope that by tapping into Sky’s viewers and telling a number of the recreation’s largest names’ tales, we are able to make constructive change and assist rid the stigma of psychological well being.

Watch ‘Tackling the Stigma’ at 10.30pm on Thursday Could 18 on Sky Sports activities Premier League and Sky Sports activities Soccer – the documentary may also be obtainable On Demand

If you’re affected by these points or need to speak, please contact the Samaritans on the free helpline 116 123, or go to the web site www.samaritans.org