What's Normal Anyway? Celebrities' Own Stories of Mental Illness (15 page)

‘When I do me guest speaking now, I come out and say: “Listen, I don't care if you're an 'airy-arsed fuckin' biker or you're at Oxford or whatever – if you don't tell people that you've got a fuckin' problem then how can anybody help you?'”

D
ean Windass was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1969, where he started his footballing career as a teenage trainee at his home club, Hull City, before being released at the age of eighteen. Brought back and signed by the club at the age of twenty-two, Deano – as he became known – played 176 games for the Tigers and scored 57 goals, before being sold to Aberdeen in 1995. He later played for clubs including Oxford United, Middlesbrough, Sheffield United and Bradford City, before returning to Hull City in 2007, where his goal against Bristol City in the play-offs saw Hull promoted to the Premiership for the first time in the club's 104-year history. He retired in 2009, at the age of forty, having made over 600 football league appearances and scoring some 230 goals in all competitions. Struggling to adjust to life after retirement from professional football, Dean became depressed and started drinking heavily, which eventually led to the breakdown of his marriage to his wife Helen, with whom he has two sons, Josh and Jordan. After two unsuccessful suicide attempts, he got help as an inpatient at the Sporting Chance Clinic and now has a job working for a hardware supplier in Hull, and does some football commentating.

***

When I was at the peak of me football career I was a very bubbly character, always the joker in the pack so to speak. Just generally an 'appy goin' kid. I had a good lifestyle, didn't want for nothing really, had a lovely house, nice cars. Yeah, cars were a thing for me, I liked them, and every time a new car came out I'd probably go and buy one. Not so much sports cars, more sort of like general commercial Range Rovers, Audi Q7s and things like that. I had nearly every car in the book really. I had a wife, Helen, and two boys, Josh and Jordan – eighteen and thirteen year old now they are – and everything was going okay. You know, life was good, everything was going well: earning a bit of money, me family life, being with someone that you love, obviously scoring goals. Generally just being 'appy like, you know? So that was me.

But I never took anything for granted cos I used to work for a living before I was a footballer. I was earning
£
140 a week on a building site and
£
100 a week in a factory, so to sign for Hull City in the '90s, me home town club, after getting released as an eighteen year old was . . . it was a big jump for me, and obviously I really enjoyed it. I mean me mam and dad weren't skint when they were married, but they weren't wealthy, so I appreciated everything I got when I did get summin. So I tried giving me boys what I never had, you know? I didn't really care about money, all I cared about was seeing if me kids and me life was alright, that we had a nice home, and that when they wanted summin I could get 'em it.

I think the high point of me career was signing for professional football, first and foremost, as a twenty-one, twenty-two year old, in the '90s. To sign professional forms is something that every boy wants to do. And to sign for me home town club was probably . . . probably the best thing that ever happened to me. And scoring that goal in the play-offs to get them up, that was a big part of me life really. It's every young man's dream to score at Wembley and to score a goal like that on that occasion – to take Hull City, me home town, into the Premier League after 104 years – I knew what it meant to everybody.

But I had to retire in 2009. I'd had a good twenty years but I went on loan to Oldham and summin just went there. I moved on again to Doncaster and by that time I stopped enjoying it, I stopped enjoying it. I'd always been at the front of the running – you know, one of the top five – not obviously sprinting-wise cos I never had any pace, but I was quite a strong runner, and even on me days off I got to the gym and ran. First and foremost I loved training, I enjoyed me training, you're with twenty lads 'aving a laff and joke and a bit of a crack and it was a big part of me life. But I was reaching the end of me career. It was obviously getting harder: I started aching after training and after matches and I couldn't recover like I used to do. Maybe I could have carried on for another year or so, but I just called it a day.

When I retired, I thought I had the divine right to just fuckin' walk back into football. And I did get a job with Colin Todd, as assistant manager at Darlington, but I was only in the job for six months before we both got the sack. But I thought that I was invincible: ‘Oh, Dean Windass, scored me goal at Wembley, I'll get another job', and it didn't fuckin' work like that. Don't get me wrong, I did all me coaching qualifications when I was a player, took me coaching badges, but obviously it's not as easy as that. It's like being a footballer: once you're in it's up to you then, but it's just very difficult at the moment to get back in, there's a lot of ex-footballers who are trying to get back in the game now.

But I was alright for a while when I retired cos I got a job with Sky Sports on
Soccer Saturday
, freelancing. I was getting up and still going to the gym every day, and then I was working on the Tuesday night or on a Saturday on a game, so you're actually still watching football and you still feel part of it. But I lost that job. I've never been told the reason why, which sort of did disappoint me, as I really enjoyed it. But it come to an end for some unknown reason. I don't really think it was anything to do with drinking or me mental health, I think there's a lot of people on Sky – without mentioning any names – who've been down that road as well, and they've still got their jobs. Paul Merson would be an obvious example – I can mention him cos he's already talked about his problems – but other people that I can't mention with more recent stuff; another guy who's been in rehab same as me, so it was a bit strange.

So all of a sudden you wake up in the morning and there's nowt, there's nowt to get up for. Depression . . . it's one of them situations, not just for footballers but sports people in general – you're doing something you love every day and you've got something to wake up for, and then all of a sudden you don't. You ain't got anything. Forget about the money, you could have all the money in the world, it makes no fuckin' difference. I had no daily routine really then, so I was getting to the stage where I had nowt else to do, so I thought I'd go to the pub for a bit of company. You know what I mean. Then that sort of escalated to going to the pub every day – not going and getting
drunk
every day – but I was going to the pub every day. And I started putting a bit of weight on and I wasn't training, I wasn't looking after meself, and the more I did that the more down I got really. It was just a vicious circle. It's tiring, it's just so tiring; you're waking up every day tired. I didn't have any motivation, I couldn't be arsed to go to the gym like I used to, because obviously I had a fuckin' hangover.

The one problem I 'ad is that when I went and got drunk I 'ad to go an' 'ave another beer the next day cos I 'ad 'eadache. So it was, like, 'air of the dog, you know, which wasn't helping me. So when I went out, I'd go out on two-, or three-, or four-day benders. I wouldn't come home for four days and me wife would be saying: ‘Where the fuck are you?' and I'd say: ‘Fuck off I'm staying out', and that'd be it, I'd just stay out for four days. I wouldn't give . . . I wouldn't care about anybody but meself when I were just staying out and getting pissed up, then coming home an' not speaking to me wife for two or three days, and then fuckin' arguing again. And then come the weekend I'd say I'd never fuckin' do it again and then I'd carry on doing it, I kept doing it. Every time I got down, I fuckin' went out and fuckin' went on a two- or three-day bender.

So it put a strain on me family life. I'd been married for nineteen, twenty years and we were arguing all the time because I didn't have a job and me wife was concerned that I was drinking too much, so we was rowing and then I was shouting and bawling at the kids. I was losing me temper, getting angry and punching walls 'n' things like that, and me kids could see me doing it as well. If I 'ad an argument with me wife I went out an' got drunk and peed the bed and did all things like that. I was just spiralling out of control really and in the end it broke our marriage up and it sort of went from bad to worse then. I split up with the wife, I left the family home, and I ended up moving in with a girl in Hull. And I just ended up with nothing to do: I didn't see the kids as often as I wanted, I didn't have any focus, you know?

Then me dad died, me dad passed away, which was a kick in the bollocks really. I'd had an argument with me dad before he died, cos obviously he was concerned about me and me wife. She was ringing me dad up and saying: ‘He's getting out of control', basically, and then I had a big argument with me dad for the first time in forty-one years. And then six months later he died, so that sort of . . . that sort of . . . I blame meself really, for him dying. See . . . he had a sudden heart attack and I just couldn't get me head round it, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't . . . I just blame meself really. And looking back, although I don't know when I started to first get depressed – it happens, it just happens, you don't know what's happening to you – I think it was every day after me dad died, it was every day that I was just drinking to block things out.

So I can't really put me finger on when and how it came around, it just sort of come on top of me and I couldn't do anything about it. I was just trying to block everything out, so I thought: if I drink, then I'm not thinking about things basically. I think that I was going in the pub and putting a brave face on as though there was nothing happening, as though there was nothing wrong with me. But I as going out drinking and having a laff with the lads and then coming back and crying me eyes out basically. You know, obviously, with me dad dying, I had nobody to talk to. I didn't really speak to anybody, just bottled things up and put a brave face on, because you're Dean Windass and everybody thinks you're a bubbly character. And it sort of escalated from that really, and I was in a hole and I couldn't really get out of it, and I was just digging meself in deeper.

Looking back I do think that I had other periods of me life when I suffered from depression, but I think it all comes down to drinking. I'm not saying I was an alcoholic but . . . it was a big part of it, it was a big part of it. What I done was if things weren't going right in me life, I'd just go and run and have a drink. When I played for Aberdeen the fitness coach sensed that I was down and I wasn't playing well – I was out the team – and I said: ‘Look, I'm sort of drinking a little bit too much and I need some 'elp.' And he put me onto this therapist, a bloke, who I went to speak to and got a few things off me chest. Me parents split up when I was thirteen and that obviously affected me life. I just couldn't handle me mam and dad splitting up, I never forgive them two splitting up. I never spoke to me mam for three years, even though me dad had an affair and went off with another woman. But me and me dad never fell out, I sort of blamed me mam I think, I don't know why. Obviously I get on well with me mam now, so I was just blaming everybody else. So speaking to 'im about it sort of helped me a little bit, you know?

So this bloke, this therapist, said: ‘Look you can still go for a drink but just don't go mad, just calm the drinking down and you won't get depressed.' And I did that and I managed it, I think for about six or seven months, and I was fine. And I thought I was . . . I thought I was cured. So I felt a little bit better after that. But obviously every time that summin went wrong I just fuckin' turned round to the drink, just thought: ‘Fuck it, I'm going out and I'm gonna go and get drunk', and that's what I used to do. So I was drinking for a number of years really, but obviously while I was still training every day, I wasn't that bad in me early days.

But the last year it sort of caught up with me a little bit, you know? Obviously because I didn't share with anybody, I never spoke to anybody, it was just getting worse and worse really, and the more fed up I got, the more I went out for a drink just to pick meself up. Just to say: ‘Well he's the laffer and joker of the pack, look at him in the pub 'avin' a laff, there's nowt wrong with him.' I didn't want anybody to know that I was properly down but obviously when you close that door, and you're in your family life, nobody knows what's happening. I could be laffin and joking one minute and shut the fuckin' front door and next thing crying me fuckin' eyes out – it was getting to the stage where I was like that.

You know, Gary Speed was out the blue. I fuckin' played against him, I spoke to Gary a few times, and you would never have thought that he had a problem. Listen, people think everything's alright, he was manager of Wales, nobody would have ever dreamed of what he did. And obviously, for his family, it's distraught for 'em. Nobody knows the story, and I don't want to know what or why he did it, it's none of my business. Obviously the boy was suffering in some sort of way and consequently it ended his life. That is a prime example of people thinking that everything is rosy in the garden cos you're Gary Speed, or Dean Windass, or Stan Collymore, or whoever, you know, Ricky Hatton. There's loads of us. It's tough, it's tough, it
is
tough. So what you try doing, you try to block it out I think.

***

I don't know how I would describe depression to someone who's never been through it. It's just . . . I don't know, I tended to over-think too much, and everything that had gone wrong in me life, I sort of couldn't handle it, I couldn't handle things. It was like being caught in a dark cloud, or walking down a dark corridor or tunnel, and there was just no light at the end of it for me, I just didn't want to be around anymore. And I thought to meself: ‘If I'm 'urtin' that many people, if I'm not 'ere then I can't 'urt anybody', basically. That was my attitude. I just didn't wanna be 'ere, I didn't wanna be alive, I didn't wanna wake up in the fuckin' morning. I dreaded going a bed cos I didn't wanna wake up the next day . . . drinking lager on a night just to sort of make me go to sleep. But then I'd feel rough in the morning and I'd fuckin' go out for a drink again when me girlfriend went to work. I'd just go to the pub, you know, and then obviously drink driving and all that shit. It was just a fuckin' mess.