Tragic truth behind sport's fallen stars: suicide lurks says Dean Windass

Dean Windass is a bit of a character. Talented, effective, funny. As a professional footballer he never ­played for the glamour clubs in Manchester or London, but he did okay. He earned R5 million a year, bought high-fashion R2 000 T-shirts and “every new car” on the market.

A month ago, he attempted to kill himself. Twice. He’s not ashamed to admit: “I felt I had no purpose any more, I had nothing to get up for.”

Like Gary Speed, the former Wales manager who hanged himself in his garage in November, Windass is 42. He retired from football two years ago. And he simply can’t handle it.

Though South Africa has no detailed history of former sports stars attempting suicide, the British are awash with them. Frank Bruno, the former world heavyweight champion, tried it. So did Paul Gascoigne, perhaps the greatest footballer of his ­time. Two of England’s most popular sportsmen – yet nothing was done.

Windass admitted to the Sunday People’s Katie Hind (who kindly gave me her permission to reprint the quotes): “Just over a week ago I hit rock-bottom and decided to end it all. I took an overdose first – and when that didn’t work tried to hang myself.

“I have cried every day for the last two years since retiring. People outside football think we have it all. I felt so alone and believed I had nothing to live for. I was in a hole that I didn’t know how to get out of.

“I need to sort myself out which is why I’m speaking out now.”

This week Windass attempted to seek counselling at the Sporting Chance Clinic, run by former Arsenal and England star Tony Adams, who also suffers from depression.

But Windass was told he cannot check in until next month for therapy sessions because the centre in London is fully booked with other former sportsmen and women who desperately need help for a range of problems.

In a statement which may resonate with former sports stars in South Africa, he says: “I hope by speaking out it may help anyone else who is feeling as desperate as I was and that the PFA or FA can help. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, it is my fault, but hopefully it will help some people like me who are out there.”

Windass admits he had it all after his Wembley play-off winning goal in May 2008 against Bristol City which sent his hometown club Hull City into the Premier League for the first time in their 104-year history.

That goal alone was estimated to be worth £60 million (R720 million) in TV revenue. He played at the top for 19 years with Middlesbrough, Sheffield United, Bradford City and Aberdeen as well as Hull.

He admits: “I wasn’t in the superstar bracket but I was pulling in well over half a million pounds a year, so money was no object. Harvey Nichols was my middle name. I would buy £200 shirts, I’d live in D&G and Prada. Every time a new car came out, Audi or BMW, I would buy it. Top-of-the-range cars were my thing.

“I had a big family house in Leeds worth over a million. I was treated ­like a superstar wherever I went. Now I am living off what little savings I have but they are running out. I did some work for Sky Sports which I loved but that came to an end.

“I’ve tried really hard to get a job. I did all of my coaching qualifications while I was playing. I put my CV into loads of clubs for a coach­ing job but you don’t hear anything back.”

Windass, a rugged, no-nonsense player with a ­nose for goals and entertainment, shrugs: “People have this image of me as this big strong man who can take anything life throws at him. But I’m not ashamed to say I wanted to end it.”

After his retirement as a player at Hull two years ago, Dean turned to booze, often downing 10 to 15 pints of lager and lime. His 18-year marriage to Helen, a 45-year-old police officer, fell apart. He was estranged from his sons Josh, 18, and Jordan, 12.

He admits: “I was aggressive, I’d smash glasses and Helen had had enough which was understandable.

“There were arguments and arguments and then I went off with some­one else. I met her in Hull in a pub. I moved into her house. I split up with her last week.”

And that was when he hit his low­est point. He explained: “Just days ago, alone and drunk at my home in Hull, I swallowed a load of tablets – I think they were painkillers.

“Luckily a friend turned up and made me throw up. I knew I’d been a fool but I couldn’t shake off the depress­ion.

“The next day another dark cloud emerged so I drowned my sorrows with half a bottle of amaretto liqueur.

“I was just over an hour’s drive away from my wife and family in Leeds but it felt like the other side of the world. I thought ‘I don’t want to be in this world any more’.

“I tried to use a bedsheet to hang myself and tied it to a handrail at the top of the stairs but it was too long.

“I was quite drunk and couldn’t get it to work so I got a belt instead. At that point another friend came round so I couldn’t go through with it. Now I’m trying to get better, get back on track. I don’t want to be miserable every day.”

Windass admits the death of Speed, a rival on the pitch, had impact. He said: “He must have been feeling in a similar way to me. When I heard the news I thought that could be me and I continued down that dark corridor of depression.”

“People outside football think we have it all, but we don’t. Look at Stan Collymore (a former England striker, now a radio presenter) and what he’s been through with depression. There’s this assumption ‘he’s a footballer, he’s all right’.

“Everyone thinks that Dean Windass is a laugh and a joke and a kid blah blah blah, and got loads of money and his ­wife and kids are lovely. But that’s all a mask. I was in piec­es, I couldn’t stop drinking or crying. I’ve cried every day for the last two years.

“With no job I’d get up, go for a run and hit the pub. I could still play the big guy because everyone knew me and wanted to buy me a drink.

“But after necking pint after pint I’d take my frustrations out on the family. The follow­ing day I’d repeat the same pattern and tell my wife I was popping out to buy a paper. I couldn’t get work anywhere and blew nearly all my savings. I couldn’t even afford to pay for my son’s motor insurance.

“I scored the winning goal at Wembley to get Hull into the Premiership and foolishly thought I was made for life.

“After I finished playing for Hull I got an assistant manager job at non-league Darlington with Colin Todd which was my dream but we got sacked. It wasn’t a lot of money but it wasn’t about that. I wanted to coach – I wanted to manage.

“That ended and I became increasingly depressed.”

Now Windass is appealing to football’s governing body: “The Professional Footballers’ Association or FA need to help us.”

With great candour, he confesses: “Footballers? We’re not the brightest but you play football all your life.”

This story ran in South Africa's new Sunday tabloid Scoop! last Sunday, along with a long list of sporting suicides and a contact number for local sportsmen who have been where Dean was. For further information see www.scoopnews.co.za.

Gary Speed suicide leads TEN fellow footballers to seek help for depression

TEN professional footballers have sought help for depression since Gary Speed's inexplicable suicide on Saturday night.

Despite the fact that his agent and best man Hayden Evans - as quoted on this site yesterday - insists the Wales manager did not suffer from the condition, it appears his parting has led to a "scramble" for help at the Sporting Chance Clinic.

Their chief executive Peter Kay said: "I think it's almost inappropriate that anything good can come out of such an awful occurrence.

"But over ten players have contacted me since that news broke. That means ten people are seeking help. That is an unusual amount. If that can be deemed something worthwhile coming out from such a tragedy then so be it.

"When people are voicing the fact they've considered taking their own life, you have to understand that is one stage before the situation Gary got to."

Funding for the clinic, set up by former Arsenal and England talisman Tony Adams, comes partly from the Professional Footballers' Association. Its chief executive Gordon Taylor yesterday said players with mental health issues needed to find the "courage to ask for help".

As the footballing nation continued to mourn Speed's demise, concerns have been raised surrounding the Werther Effect, where talk of suicide leads to a lemming-like rush to the clifftop. The argument is this: If Gary Speed — great footballer, successful manager, rolling in money, still in good shape, handsome, lovely family, respected by all — can’t soldier on, how can anybody?

No answers to the questions swirling around Gary Speed's death

The mystery surrounding the tragic death of Wales manager Gary Speed deepens. Yesterday, his close friend Alan Shearer asked the question everyone needs answered. He said simply: “Why Speedo, didn't you give me or one of your other close mates a ring, if you were feeling so bad?”
And Speed’s agent Hayden Evans, best man at his wedding to wife Louise, failed to cast any further light on the 42-year-old’s apparent decision to hang himself in the garage of his Cheshire home on Saturday night. He said: "Louise is bewildered. They didn’t argue. She just doesn't understand it."
A post-mortem will be held today at 3pm GMT where details of Speed’s death will be clarified. Current reports suggest he may have hung himself at around 11.30pm on Saturday night. Police were called to the house in Huntingdon at 7am on Sunday morning and the news of his death was released just before Swansea City – the only Welsh side in the Premier League - kicked-off their game against Aston Villa.
After a minute’s silence filled with warm applause, Speed’s former Newcastle team-mate, Villa goalkeeper Shay Given, was inconsolable, weeping openly as a 0-0 draw which should never have been played dragged to a conclusion. What was it Bill Shankly said? “Football isn’t life and death. It’s more important than that.” Bollocks.
But the mystery remains. Speed appeared on BBC’s Football Forum in Manchester on Saturday morning, where he talked on air with former Leeds team-mate Gary McAllister, making jokes and promising to play golf next week. He then watched a televised game with Shearer in the studio.
As rumours of a row with Louise and a possible kiss-and-tell story lurking in the tabloids swirled around the internet, Hayden told The Sun this morning: "Gary and Louise were happily married and anyone who knows them will tell you that. This is why it's a mystery.
"We genuinely at the moment have no clue whatsoever what has caused it and I have been with the family all day. Everybody is asking the same question and no one has an answer. We are all in shock."
Many on Twitter have asked if Speed suffered from depression, blamed for the attempted suicides of boxer Frank Bruno and footballer Paul Gascoigne, sportsmen of similar ages over the past decade.
But with Speed taking Wales 70 places up the FIFA rankings in less than a year and widely revered for being a level-headed veteran of 840 games including a record 84 games for his nation before his retirement, there is no suggestion of any mental illness. Never has been.
Hayden, who said Speed was “happy as can be” when they spoke on the telephone on Saturday night, insisted: “Bouts of depression? None whatsoever. The one thing the family and me - as one of his closest friends - would totally refute is that. There was no indication of any problems and never has been."
Shearer is equally mystified. The pair played together at Newcastle for six winters and still take family holidays together. He said: "The question I keep asking myself and have done since I heard the dreadful news is 'Why? Why Speedo, didn't you give me or one of your other close mates a ring, if you were feeling so bad?'
"Why he couldn't have picked up the phone for a chat in those moments before he did what he did, I'll never know. None of us will.
"I was with him on Saturday watching the Stoke game and arranging next weekend.

"He was coming up with his wife to stay at my house. We were going to various charity dinners. I left the studio, shook his hand and said, 'See you next weekend.' Unfortunately I won't."
Shearer, like so many in football this week, is finding the loss of one of the game’s most respected players impossible to accept: "This just doesn't happen to one of your best mates. My wife is in bits. We just keep thinking of Louise, the two boys and his mum and dad. I can't imagine the pain they're going through. I can't get my head around the fact I was with him and he was happy, joking.
"We were having a laugh and joke about golf trips and holidays that we went on together last year. We were planning our next holiday in Portugal next summer with the families and the kids.
"I played against him many times, but when Kenny Dalglish signed him for Newcastle straight away we struck up a relationship. You're bound to have arguments along the way in football — but no one ever did with Gary.
"No one had a bad word for him. He was what you'd describe as a proper bloke, a proper man. You could depend on him."

It's England v Wales tonight, and John Terry's lecturing Andy Carroll on drinking!

You know you’ve got a drinking problem when John Terry tells you to go easy on the bottle. And that’s just what happened yesterday, as England prepared for their Euro 2012 qualifier against Wales at Wembley tonight.

Yes, Terry, the bloke you may think uses “Troubled” as his first name, has told Liverpool’s pony-tailed striker Andy Carroll to lay off the booze.

Chelsea and England defender is famous for his boozy nights and rash affairs – not to mention having an alleged drug dealer as a father and a convicted shop-lifter as a mother.

No better man to give Carroll a word of advice is there? Carroll, remember, had to move in with his former Newcastle captain Kevin Nolan as part of his bail conditions after an assault charge last year. After having his car burnt out in the driveway, Mrs Nolan and the two kids had to decamp to Liverpool when Nolan and Carroll started throwing wild parties in the family home.

And then there was the time he broke a team-mates jaw after a row over a girlfriend at training. Nice guy, Andy Carroll.

Hence the need for Terry to warn him: “I've made my mistakes, maybe drank a little bit too much when I was younger and gone out a little bit too much.

"But, having gone through that, at 26 or 27 you maybe look back and are glad that you did it then because you don't want to do it now."

Ah. Carroll is only 22, still wet behind the ears after his £35m/R350m move from hometown Newcastle to resurgent Liverpool, where he has managed just one goal this season. Does that mean he has four more years of drinking to come?

Apparently not. Terry tells the Sun how young Master Carroll should try a more healthy style, adding: "Andy is a young player who's at a very big club with a really good future. He has still got to enjoy his time away from football. I'm sure he will. He's a really good pro on the pitch and good around the camp”

As England go into tonight’s key qualifier, Wales boss Gary Speed, fresh from his side’s 2-1 win over mighty Montenegro, are concentrating on another reformed bad boy, Wayne Rooney.

The United star scored twice in the 3-0 win over Bulgaria on Friday night and Speed admits: "We have looked at ways of minimising Rooney’s effectiveness but it's going to be difficult because of his quality.

“I wouldn't like to be a centre-half playing against him. Rooney is an amazing player and, from a pro's point of view, great to watch. People talk about his goalscoring but his movement off the ball is fantastic as well and causes teams so many problems.

"We haven't done that much in training because of the time but we do a lot of work off the pitch in the video room."

Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey will have the armband tonight. He admits: "We know the task ahead of us and we will all be ready for him.

"He's proved this season that he is back to his best. But, hopefully, we can keep him quiet."

Speed has no injury worries but is without the suspended Craig Bellamy and David Vaughan after their bookings in the 2-1 win over Montenegro on Friday.