Former Liverpool midfielder, Jason McAteer found it difficult to contain his tears when he talked about his mental health issues following his retirement from football.
The ex-Sunderland star, who retired in 2007 after playing for Tranmere Rovers, talked about the challenges he faced after his career came to an end. As he tried to adapt to a life that was not focused on playing football, McAteer battled sadness and suicidal thoughts.
According to The Mirror, the 53-year-old sobbed as he described how, while driving to pick up his son, he had thought about purposefully crashing his car. McAteer stated that he still misses playing football.
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“I just had no purpose, mate, it was no structure,” he said. “The TV stuff, I mean I wasn’t working every day of the week.
“It would be like maybe one show a week or maybe two shows a week. It was very sporadic. Days and days and days with nothing to do, yeah.
“And I got to the tunnel, that tunnel between the Wirral and Liverpool. My child, who I was keeping this relationship with under difficult circumstances, lived on the other side of this tunnel.
“And I was driving through the tunnel, and it upsets me, because it takes me back to this moment because I can feel it. And as you go out the daylight into the tunnel light, it’s like this kind of light.
“I remember thinking to myself, I’m just going to swing the car here and just end it. That’s how easy it is. And I was fighting myself not to do it, fighting going ‘do it, do it, do it, do it do it’.
“I got to my mum’s. My mum lived 10 minutes around the corner and I knocked on a door and I remember just saying, ‘I can’t do it anymore. That’s it, that’s it’. And I was just at that point.
“Oh man, it was tough. Just like everything had gone… I don’t half miss it. I miss… I miss everything about playing. I miss it.”
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