Freddie Flintoff: Hidden Side of Sport

CHEERING

-COMMENTATOR:

-Yes! Magnificent cricket from this man!

Really, he set the place alight.

As a professional sportsman, you experience some unbelievable highs

and dramatic lows.

You never think the lows could turn into depression.

Cricketer Andrew Flintoff says he feels ashamed

and embarrassed by his antics in the Caribbean.

You put it down to it just being part of the game.

The successes, the failures.

For some, though, it becomes all too much.

-I took a gun up to the woods.

-With the intention...?

-Yeah.

-..of firing it?

-Yeah.

I came out the ring, I took my head guard and my gloves off.

I sat down on the steps of the ring

and I put a towel over my head and I started sobbing and sobbing.

I remember being startled when I was told there are

more suicides for ex-cricketers than any other sport in Britain.

I had no emotion at all. I was just numb. I had no anger. No tears.

I was very, paranoid. I thought everybody was talking about me.

The way I used to look at it was... um, why is it me?

What's so wrong with me?

I've played with team-mates who've suffered from depression.

They say that one in ten sportsmen suffer from it.

That's a player in every team in the country.

But what triggers it?

How do you cope with playing at the top level

suffering with such a crippling psychological injury?

One that you can't see,

and one you often can't bring yourself to talk about.

I want to explore what lies behind some of the things I went through.

The ways I behaved.

I want to understand what depression can do.

What WE can do to allow people to really open up about it.

Two different photos, four years apart.

Same corner in the dressing room.

These two here are my two favourite pictures.

This one was 2005, the Ashes, a beer on, with me mate.

For me, that's the best one. The only thing missing on that was the cigar.

The difference between the two, 2005 was euphoria, middle of your career.

That was in 2009.

That's the end. I think I knew, deep down, that that was the end of me.

CHEERING

And now he goes, too.

Would you believe what we're seeing here in Manchester?!

Would you believe the magnificence of Steve Harmison,

who has 4 for 14 today?

-I was the number one bowler in the world at the time.

-Yeah.

At the top of me powers.

And maybe the perception that everybody was looking at me

thinking, "You've got to bowl South Africa out,

"you've got to take five wickets each time,

"you've got to do this, you've got to do that.

"You've got to carry the attack, you've got to be..."

And here I was, struggling inside,

but it never really transformed onto the field.

I never took it onto the field and thought I was struggling on the field.

That was my get out, really.

Walking over that white line was like a release.

We went into Jo'burg and it was the first time, really,

I had gone into a trip where I was having one of these

sort of dark days, or episodes, as the doctor said to me afterwards.

It was the first time I'd gone on a trip feeling like that,

and I had a bad first week.

I couldn't train, I was struggling to breathe,

struggling to get anything sort of in.

I was hyperventilating, and that's when it dawned on me,

that A, you've got a problem, and B, you're going to have to sort it out.

-When you say hyperventilating, what...?

-I couldn't breathe.

I was training because... I was panicky. I was anxious.

The anxiety was hitting me. I had a lump in me throat.

I was having bad heads. I was thinking... I was shaking. I didn't want to let go of the ball.

There was one night I just went back to my room

and I looked in the mirror and was thinking, "What's your problem?"

-That's when it really dawned on me, that you've got a problem. You're not weak...

-Yeah.

There's something wrong with you and you're going to have to try and sort it out.

-Were you sweating?

-That was when depression was first mentioned to me.

You went on probably ten tours feeling like this.

-To get through that many...

-I still don't know...

I can't get to the answer of what actually made me feel that way.

And I still don't. It's something I'd ask you,

when I left in 2006, and you had to go on and play in the one-days

and all the stuff that went on after that, I saw you on TV.

I was looking at you and thinking, "Might be struggling there as well."

That's something I've felt. I looked at you and I thought, "He's...

"He's got a bit of me in him."

It's funny, cos you say that and then the more I do,

speaking to you, and the more I look into it,

you actually pick things out of my career, and 2006/7 Ashes trip, for me,

I was probably at an all-time low, both personally and professionally,

even though, you mentioned, I was captain of England,

financially fine, and should be, playing Australia,

on the biggest stage of all, and for some reason, I think I did experience that.

I didn't want to get up out of bed. I didn't want to face people.

-You didn't want to face people?

-For me, I... I'd go back to my hotel room. I couldn't switch off.

'For Steve, this was a big step to talk about.

'He's never spoken about any of these issues

'whilst he was playing for England.

'But he did to me was, he came straight back at me.

'He was questioning my career

'and questioning some of the things he'd seen in me, and walking away...

'it was... I've got a few things to think about.'

'When we found out we'd won the Ashes,

'we went back on the field and my legs just felt like they wanted to keep running and running.

'I didn't want to stand still. I was bouncing around.

'It was probably a state of euphoria.

'However, watching it back is quite surreal.

'Even watching myself, I actually don't see that as me.

'I see it as this big bloke who's played cricket, who's enjoying himself.

'There's almost a complete detachment from it.

'It's just watching a group of lads who've won the Ashes.'

-TV:

-Some of the most fantastic scenes ever seen in English cricket.

There's a proud country out there, thrilled with its team's efforts.

Can you imagine how those cricketers feel?!

CHEERING

We look at professional sports people who are winning the Ashes

or playing international table tennis or football or rugby, or whatever,

and we mythologise about it.

We make the assumption that because you're successful

and earning lots of money,

because you are acclaimed by society,

you are going to be living in an emotional nirvana.

You're going to be happy, you're going to be philosophically certain,

and everything is going well for you. That is a myth.

Oh, well, now...

It's 6 more.

We're witnessing something fantastic.

Something that everybody can identify with.

Just thrilling sport!

MATTHEW SYED: It's perfectly natural, isn't it, to feel good when you win

and to feel bad and reclusive when you lose,

but imagine when you lose, you don't just feel bad and reclusive.

You feel terribly downcast, unhappy, depressed.

And moreover, imagine if you win and you feel that way.

Yeah, that happened a few times in my career.

I remember in the West Indies, we'd won a one-day international,

sat in the dressing room, the rest of the lads were celebrating,

and I didn't want to do anything. I was sat in the corner, in my little space in the room,

not wanting to get involved in the celebrations.

And...it was just how I was feeling at the time.

MUSIC: "You'll Never Walk Alone"

I was 29, I was in the peak of my career. I had everything

a young man could want, you know?

I had the lifestyle and I'd just signed a new contract

and I was on really good money

and I was playing very good football at the time.

All of a sudden, I woke up one morning

and I just didn't feel right.

And I was quite an outgoing guy. Quite gregarious. Loved my life.

And all of a sudden, I became this insular sort of person I never recognised.

And the depression...

What I realised as I went on and learned more about it,

it's not just a mental illness. It can affect you in the physical way as well.

I was suffering from lack of sleep, you know?

Sweats, shakes, lack of appetite,

and it was maybe only two months into it I got diagnosed with having it,

and then I was able to deal with it properly after that.

Could you put your finger on what triggered it?

-Was there an incident, or something had happened?

-No.

In certain circumstances, with other individuals,

it could be a death in the family or loss of a job, anything like that,

but my life was just running along very, very smoothly.

I think, looking back now, it's probably a genetic thing,

which, again, can be quite a common thing.

It obviously jolted me.

My life, for three months, was abject misery.

The doctor kept Martin O'Neill up to speed with how I was feeling.

He gave me some great advice.

He said, "Just treat it like a hamstring strain.

Though you weren't physically injured, treat it like an injury,

and you know in three or four weeks' time you'll be better.

You had to get through training and the games as best you could.

Now you got into management.

Do you now look for that in players?

Is it something you're probably more sympathetic to?

Absolutely. I am aware some players I've worked with already under me

have suffered from it, and some of the younger players,

believe it or not, have gone through it, as well.

They know the door's open. They can talk about it to me any time.

You treat it like an injury. You give them three or four weeks off.

We had a player who had a month off with it, and we just said,

"Come back when you're ready".

There is that feeling of shame when you go through it, as well.

People say, "Go and have a holiday".

But, even if you do, you take it with you, it's inside you.

It's in your body, it's in your mind.

It's comforting to know there are managers out there

like Neil Lennon, a guy who's experienced it firsthand.

He says the door's open for any player,

whatever age, to go in and speak to him about it.

But I wonder what it'd be like if you played an individual sport.

Everyone's your competitor.

You've no-one to speak to.

How do you cope then?

At the time you were world number one.

Snooker going great.

Going from near the world number one.

I was falling miles down the rankings,

the worst player in the top 16, the worst player in this.

-It was hard to take.

-How far down did you get?

I fell down to about 40-odd at one point.

I wasn't winning a match.

I went through the whole year and didn't win a game.

Can you put into words what it felt like? Could you describe it?

I never thought I had depression.

I just went through months of doing nothing,

just had no interest in anything.

On a personal level, it was hard.

It was really hard on my wife.

She was sitting there, and I wouldn't speak to her.

Not in a bad way, I just didn't want to talk to anybody.

I've played in a social club on a Tuesday night,

and when the room's dark, there's just a light on the table,

and you're there.

I felt pressure like I've never felt before,

but if you're feeling down, you're at the Crucible

and everyone's watching you, what were you feeling?

The worst time snooker-wise, I'd been battling,

battling and battling, and losing constantly.

It was the tournament before the World Championships.

That's when I decided I can't play any more.

I was playing my match, and actually started crying.

-During the game.

-Whilst you was playing?

During the game. I thought, this is getting... I couldn't control... I was sitting there.

I was losing, and I thought, "My career's finished".

I went from everywhere I wanted to be to being just finished,

and I couldn't control, and I was crying into my towel,

hoping nobody would see.

Then I thought, "If I'm crying in a tournament in China,

"what will I be like if I go to the Crucible, and the BBC,

and all the pressure that comes with that?"

It was a long way back from that. I was quite paranoid with depression.

I don't know how it treats other people, but I was very paranoid.

I thought everybody was talking about me. All the time.

Once the medication starts to kick in...

People think it's happy pills.

It's nothing like that. It just makes you feel normal.

When I don't take them, if I'm not on medication,

that's when I start to feel sometimes as if I'm close to going that way again, so I need to go back on them.

How do you use the pills?

Do you start feeling bad and take them,

or are you on them all the time?

I am, basically. I think I'll be on them forever,

and I'm not embarrassed to admit it.

I've tried to come off them, and I'll gradually fall into a horrible...

Nowhere near as bad as it was, but I know that's not right.

I might have one day of feeling a bit down, then two, then three.

Before you know it, it's a week,

and I don't want to do things again,

-so I would gladly just take them.

-Do you enjoy your snooker now more than ever?

-I'm back enjoying it.

Thanks to Barry Hearn, there's a lot more tournaments...

'After I'd spoken to Graham, I couldn't stop thinking about him.'

This was someone still going through it, still living it.

When he spoke about depression, it wasn't just words.

You could see he was feeling it at the same time.

I almost wanted to give him a big hug.

This guy was world champion. He was the top of his field.

And that's when it hit him.

This is something which is serious,

and you wouldn't wish on anyone,

or you don't want to see anyone go through

what Graham's been through.

Don't forget the power in the right hand. That's good.

When you throw that right hand,

if you're going to put a third punch on it,

make sure the right is the hard shot. Just touch them with the left.

Bang! The left hook's just coming back to keep you back on balance.

-In your career, you were a legend of boxing.

-Thank you.

At any point during your career, did it become a bit overwhelming?

There were times, even during my professional career,

where it all became a bit much, and of course having that

non-political stance in Ireland,

being an Irishman fighting

for the British title, Catholic marrying a Protestant,

the pressures of that outside of boxing

was also daunting and overwhelming.

But I was very lucky in that I had a very close family all round me,

so I could always go and talk to them whenever I had any issues.

But I know there are other fighters who aren't in that position,

who don't have as close a family network as I had,

who do need help and don't get it.

They often need to go and say,

"I need to talk to a counsellor, I need a bit of help here."

But, a great majority of them don't want to do that,

and are afraid to own up to that,

and go into fights where they're not 100 per cent psychologically right.

It's a very tough thing.

You can't have this sort of softly, softly approach to everybody,

and boxing is an unusual sport,

a very difficult sport. But there are many cases like that.

How would you manage it if I a young fighter you were coaching said,

"I'm struggling." Would you mask it? Would you...?

I would try and help him, and if it didn't work

I'd pull him out of the fight.

Try that again. Right upper cut. Make sure your balance is right.

You were falling when you were sparring with me.

We're speaking about depression. We've seen you coaching the young fighters,

teaching them about left hooks and how to throw a punch.

But is there anything in boxing which prepares fighters

for that side of it?

That's a really good point, because there isn't.

I feel it could be incumbent on these organisations,

whether it's Sport England, whether it's the Sports Council, to put some money into boxing.

We all need help. It can be a complete contradiction.

You have guys who are hard as nails,

but are very sensitive guys,

and they need advice and help, and they need support.

-There's lots of that.

-In my career,

you build this persona, and whether you can live up to it, or can't is one thing.

But when you start putting the pressure on yourself,

I can remember 2006/7, when I had a complete shocker.

It was hard to speak about it, even in the dressing room.

I always seemed to be this character who was unflappable,

however you do go back to your room every night, and whatever

people think about who you are, at times it can be very different.

When you switch the lights off, that's when it really happens.

You think, "Hold on a second. Have I bitten off more than I can chew?"

There are many incidents like that throughout every boxer

and every cricketer's career.

I was the same. I remember David Lloyd was my coach at Lancashire.

When I was young he told me,

"When you walk out to bat, put your helmet on once you get out there.

Walk out there, have a look round. Walk out as if you own the stadium".

So, every time I walked out to bat, I did that.

At no point did I feel, I own that stadium.

I used to look at the opposition.

Now and then, I'd have a word with someone on the way out,

the wicketkeeper, to say as if, "I'm not bothered,"

but, walking out, I was as nervous as the next man.

I was walking out there,

and I didn't know what was going to happen.

I was not in that much control.

But I gave this front of, "Here I am. I'm here now."

It's all about never showing fear, never showing intimidation.

And it's...

Every one of us. Let me tell you, there's not one fighter in the world that hasn't walked in that ring

-and thought...

-Oh, God!

"What am I doing? Am I sure I'm doing the right thing?"

Every fighter is in exactly the same position. No matter...

The bravado and the cockiness and all that is a front.

I'm a boxing fan so to go and speak to Barry for me was a thrill anyway.

How many titles has he won, how many fights has he won?

To listen to him speak,

I realised that if it can affect someone like Barry McGuigan,

then this can affect anyone.

The England cricketer Andrew Flintoff has denied having a drink problem

but says he feels ashamed and embarrassed by his antics in the Caribbean.

The hero of the 2005 Ashes

was dropped for yesterday's World Cup win over Canada

and sacked as vice-captain of the team

after reports of a late-night drinking session.

Man overboard? It certainly seems that Andrew Flintoff was

in more senses than one.

The first England captain to be reduced to the ranks

for his skippering of...a pedalo.

While he might have been expected to be resting before a World Cup encounter with Canada,

he was instead after a boozy night reportedly put into sea

in a pedalo purloined from outside the team hotel.

It capsized, he had to be plucked from the sea

and ended up in much hotter water.

A considerable fall from grace for the man who led England

in the Ashes series against Australia.

I've never seen it before.

It's the first time I've seen any of the press surrounding what happened.

I'm glad I actually didn't read them at the time it was happening.

I was feeling so low, so bad,

if I'd have read that at the time, it might have tipped me over the edge.

One of the things which stuck out more than anything

even though it's such a long time ago now,

is the fact of the disappointment people had in me

or the feeling I'd let people down. And that doesn't just mean my team-mates and my coach

but you think your family are reading that,

my mum's read it, my nan's read it.

And...it troubles you. A feeling of embarrassment and shame.

Do you think the media report responsibly?

Er, not really, no.

I don't think they should have to worry too much

about how they report sport.

Sport is visceral, it's raw, it's live, it's dangerous,

it's exciting,

the rewards are massive and the downside is you get

occasionally a headline you don't like.

It's a brutal relationship, I've always said that, between sportsmen and the media.

But I don't honestly think most sports journalists or news journalists

or editors of newspapers really cared that much

about the sensitivities of highly-paid sportsmen.

Our view then was that

if you are called to play for your country at sport,

it's such an incredible privilege and honour

that to actually claim to be depressed because you have to stay in a five-star hotel

while you're playing cricket for England, to me, seemed ridiculous.

-So, was your thought that if you played sport for England, you couldn't be depressed?

-Yes.

-Clinically, you cannot be depressed?

-I just couldn't grasp the concept.

I think journalists are like jealous sportsmen.

If you've got a journalist writing about cricket,

-what level did he play at?

-Yeah.

I honestly think a lot of them are jealous sportsmen

that never really done it

and they sit up there drinking their wine and their beer

while the game's going on.

And I think that's very unfair but...

No, I agree with you. I've seen it.

And you know what? Get over it. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

And if you don't want to do it, I'm available.

Because I would take any crap headline in any tabloid

to walk out to bat at Lord's.

Or to play up front with Robin van Persie.

Depression-wise in sport,

there's a lot of stuff that goes around it,

especially when you are in the media eye and being scrutinised.

I had an incident in Dublin and when I came back,

it just hit me that I'd let everybody down.

I'd let myself down.

But you can sort of stand up or you can go curl up in the corner.

I literally took a gun up to the woods...

-What, with the intention of firing it?

-Yeah.

How were you feeling to get to that point?

You just feel so degraded in yourself.

Every bit of pride and everything is out of you.

And you're just saying, "You know what?

"Why do these people keep having to put up with me -

"my wife, my kids, the club, my players, you know?"

It got to that...?

How far do you think you were from pulling the trigger?

Well, I thought, "Is this going to make it worse?"

You know, leave the family in this state of shock.

So I got out of it

whereas I didn't want to be in a selfish depression, you know?

Interestingly, since I left, I've learned a lot more about it.

In what way?

Well, by getting to know people like you

and seeing what you've been through when you've had these long-term injuries and stuff.

And realising that you are a human being.

That although you're the great Freddie Flintoff

and this great charismatic figure,

when it's not at centre stage and you can't play

and you're worried about the future of your career,

actually you are suffering a genuine form of depression.

I remember being startled when I was told

that there are more suicides for ex-cricketers

than for any other sport in Britain.

I found that really harrowing to hear that,

to find out that so many cricketers had taken their own lives.

Did anyone in the dressing rooms talk about it? Was it identified?

-Cos in the '80s and the '90s...

-Oh, it's changed.

..there was probably a huge taboo surrounding it, more so than what there is now.

Well, I think it was something that was not recognised.

Without a shadow of a doubt, it was not recognised.

But looking back now, I guarantee there's a lot of lads there

that if you sat them down and said, "Are you OK?"...

Do you not think you could have gone to the manager, or mentioned it?

They're not trained in that stuff.

I don't think they're trained in that stuff. Not at all.

When I played, there was no-one to talk to. This is the trouble.

What would have happened in the dressing room if someone had said...?

-Well, this is the thing.

-In all honesty.

Well, I would say it was like this...

If you would've turned round and said...

Imagine, you're bottom of the league and one of the lads turns round and says, "Oh, I've got depression."

-You'd smack him round the side of the head, wouldn't you, and say...

-Pull yourself together.

-Pull yourself together, curtains.

-That's the old world, isn't it? Depression wasn't there.

-Or nobody wanted to acknowledge it.

-I think it was ignored. Yeah.

I think it was ignored.

I think it would have been taken as a weakness.

Especially if you're in the trenches...

-And we always used to say, "Who would you want in your trenches?"

-Vinnie, I want Vinnie, yeah.

All of a sudden, I turn round and say to my team, "I've got depression."

I felt that a little bit because at certain points of my career

I got so low with some of the losses and I was seen in the dressing room

as this fella who will drag everyone with them.

And I can totally understand.

-If I had said, "Look, lads, I'm really struggling..."

-I've gone.

..that would've sent shockwaves through the dressing room. I felt I couldn't.

You'd have probably got slaughtered in the media as well.

And the media is definitely now treating depression

and issues like that in a much more responsible way than it ever did

when I was involved in the newspaper game.

Because then it all seemed something not to be taken too seriously.

-I think the press have grown up a bit.

-I remember with Steve Harmison.

I've toured with him, he's one of my best mates.

And I sat next to him and I watched for ten years, this lad go on tour,

and he was getting a kicking in the press

and he just suffered in silence.

They were writing that "he was homesick, he's injured, he's not fit, he wants to go home."

However, it was far deeper than that. I got frustrated with you

-because you had a bit of a pop at one point.

-I did.

And it was either he has to come out or people should take the time

to investigate what is wrong with him.

But it's easy to jump into "Steve's homesick".

I would throw it back at you. You guys knew he had depression.

If what you're saying it was right and it was proper, serious, clinical depression,

what the hell was he doing playing professional sport,

where every moment that he's on that field,

he's susceptible to violent headlines in newspapers

likely to make the depression worse?

So, if it's a proper depression, yank him out of the fire,

take him out of that fire. That is the responsible thing to do.

I don't think you can blame the media, who are not as well informed.

You're saying the responsibility lies with the medical team?

-Well, you were his captain.

-Yeah.

-Leadership sometimes... I'm throwing it back at you.

-Fine.

It's a reasonable question.

-Did you understand depression at the time?

-No, that's one of the reasons I'm doing this.

I've seen my mate go through it.

I've seen him battle and come through and have some good times.

Is it true that you and I, now being so much better informed about him,

and depression, would probably both make different decisions?

I think it's not just you and I, it's the wider world. It's...

'I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting Piers to turn the tables

'and point the finger at me.

'I've been thinking about it and I've been racking my brains

'about what more I could have done for Steven.

'Maybe that was one of my failings as a captain -

'I haven't got the answers. I don't know.

'Also, at the time, I think I was dealing with my own emotions,

'I was at a low, personally.

'Maybe not fully aware of what other people were going through.

'I was battling a little bit myself.'

BELL RINGS

CHEERING

-How are you, Fred? Are you all right?

-Good, mate.

-Nice here, isn't it?

-It's the heartbreak hotel.

-Nice to see you. How's the family? Good?

-Yeah, good.

Brilliant, mate. Come in.

Walking to the ring, in my mind I was thinking,

I was thinking, "You're going to get beat here. You're going to get beat."

Walking to the ring before I fought Manny Pacquiao,

I thought, "I'm going to get beat. I've peaked too soon."

"If me sparring partners are giving me a dusting,

"what's going to happen here tonight?"

The bell went for the first round and I've always been aggressive

and reckless, but I was overly reckless.

I was fighting as if, "Please, just get one good shot in

"or one good body shot in and it'll all be over."

I went in reckless and as you know what happened,

he flattened me in two rounds.

I was devastated. I felt like hanging my head in shame.

I cried and cried and cried.

It took me four months to actually watch the tape of the Pacquiao fight.

The pressure, as far back as... Even before the first defeat,

it niggles at you because you're under so much pressure,

but then, realising that my days were numbered, I had to retire.

-It was a gradual process.

-Do you think it was DURING your career?

I think it was during my career. Absolutely.

If you hadn't been a boxer, you would have experienced it,

or do you think it was triggered by boxing?

I think it was triggered by boxing.

Me, personally, I was such a proud fighter.

I was such a proud man. I was able to beat people

that were better than me because I had such a big heart,

I could overwhelm fighters.

To lose in the manner in which I did, getting knocked out was,

me being such a proud man, to have someone knock me out,

it was hard to come to terms with. I really went from bad to worse.

Along with that, I started drinking a bit more

than what I would normally do.

As you know, if you're suffering from depression,

and then you add drink to it, then it's like a runaway train.

That was something I did. When I was bad,

I'd have a drink. It was all right, to begin with, then I'd have more...

I'd go from, cheerful and feeling, "That's more like it,"

but then when you have that little bit more,

at the end of the night, you're sat in the corner of the pub, sobbing.

You think, "Oh, my word!"

When you get up in the morning, you feel really bad,

you remember what you did the night before -

"What was I doing? I was crying in front of my pals, I was going on and I was moaning..."

I had to be put in the taxi and stuff like that.

You think, "Oh, what's up with me?"

I suffered from depression after the Mayweather fight.

I had three fights from there on in, with depression.

Was it an effort to get in the ring?

It was, really.

It's very, very hard for, you know, a man,

especially a boxer, to go to someone, "I'm struggling, I need help."

It's tough.

In 2006, I was in Australia. I was captain of England.

We'd been beaten 3-0 by Christmas.

We'd lost the Ashes.

Christmas is meant to be a nice time.

I had a few drinks with my dad on Christmas Eve.

As he was going, we got into a bit of a chat

and broke down crying.

I started saying, "I'm sorry I've let you down.

"I've tried me best."

I was in floods of tears saying, "Dad, I've really tried my best.

"I can't do any more than what I'm doing."

Then my dad started crying.

I don't think from that point,

I never got back to the player I was.

2006 knocked me so much, it was always going to be impossible.

I dusted myself down and came back, to a degree,

but never the same sort of player.

When you got those gloves and had your first professional fight, did you think you'd have this?

My trainer got them just in case, cos he had a feeling

that I was going to go on and do well,

obviously not to the extent that I went on to do.

But he had a sneaky feeling so he kept the gloves

and they're the ones for the first ones.

That first fight led to this type of stuff.

There's the IBF belt.

I won the IBF light-welterweight title twice.

I won the WBA light-welterweight title,

the WBA welterweight title...

'It was interesting talking to Ricky

'because the two of us have got a similar public persona -

'happy-go-lucky, enjoy a pint, play sport just for the sheer fun of it.

'It seems that wasn't necessarily the case.

'Having spoken to Ricky, someone I know,

'someone I respect and was a fan of, listening to him talk more openly,

'and candidly about some of his feelings,

'address some of these areas in his life,

'I think it's making me talk more openly about my feelings.

'And... I actually feel it's good to do.'

Through my career, I found it hard.

I didn't want anybody thinking that there was anything

which could be got at. Sports psychology was one of them things.

It was like owning up to not being that confident person.

Over the past few years, it's been identified as a key way

for athletes to get better.

What's happened now is that people fully appreciate

the importance of the mind in sport.

Because of that importance, people acknowledge

that we have to give it due attention and incorporate it

into our training and preparation programmes.

That's accepted now and it's part and parcel of what elite athletes do.

Do you think professional sport, in that environment,

can contribute towards depression?

I don't think the world of sport CAUSES depression,

but it hasn't surprised me in recent years

that we're starting to see and hear

more examples of elite athletes experiencing depression.

As you know from the population statistics,

10% of the UK population in any given year,

are liable to experience some form of anxiety or depression.

-Playing against someone...

-Yeah.

Never. Oh, no...

But you as a master of getting in people's heads.

I've played against you, either at the other end when

you've called Ian Bell the Sherminator,

you had a pop at Colly for his MBE and you did all that.

It was hard enough anyway, but if someone came into bat

and they had a history, how would you approach that?

-Would you say anything?

-Unless you're an absolute idiot,

you're not worth knowing anyway, that you're going to take the mickey,

those blokes will get beaten up on anyway.

I don't think it's one of those things you use as a bit of sledging.

It's more of a sympathetic because it's obviously

someone's really struggling.

No matter what the sport is, it's like when someone gets hit

when you're playing cricket - you don't want to see them get hit.

You don't want to see someone struggling with their life

and it affecting their life, not just their sport, their family and so on.

You could say that the world of high-performance sport

is not a particularly healthy one in the sense that, as you say,

it's train, play, travel, train, play, travel.

You're focussed, almost to the point of being obsessed

about what you do, which is sport.

That's pretty much all you do in life.

And therefore, you get the total sense

of personal identity from your sport.

When things are going well,

that's OK. But when things start to go not so well,

then that's a challenge to your personal identity.

"Who am I? What am I"

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Let's get down...

You've been with me from day one of my career.

At what point do you think

what you saw in me,

was me at my lowest?

Well, you arrived in Sydney and...

-2007, when I was captain.

-Yeah.

..I was dismayed to see you.

I didn't see Fred, I saw a lad

that obviously had the worries of the world on his shoulders.

You were gaunt,

you had hollow eyes

and you looked haunted.

It was hard to see somebody that two months earlier had looked...

like Fred.

You were never somebody that wanted to get back to your room

and hide away, and that's what it had become.

I'll never forget in Sydney, when we played that test and I captained it,

the worst thing was, after the game I had to make a speech.

It was the worst place for me then, cos all I wanted to do was hide away

but I had 25,000 eyes on me, I had everyone looking at me.

-You'd been flogged and you had to stand there.

-Yeah.

Nothing else you could do. You stood like a man and said what you had to,

but when you go back to your room, that makes it worse.

You had some days off and there was some drinking going on

and again, that's just a trait of hiding away.

Drinking to change how I felt, to escape from what was happening.

I was completely random. I didn't know what I was doing.

And then, all I was thinking about on the field was retiring.

I was thinking, "I've had enough of this, I want to retire. I'm done."

I carried on thinking that all the way through the World Cup.

And having played with me...

HE YELLS

When I took wickets, I used to enjoy celebrating.

-It's no secret.

-Natural.

But I just used to stand there.

And I couldn't muster any energy do anything.

I was bowling slower than what I probably did.

I didn't understand what was happening to me,

And they organised... I went to see the doctor.

I got tested for diabetes, I got tested for everything,

so the doctors would tell me, "You're ill.

"There's something clinically, physically wrong with you."

Someone should have spotted classic traits of depression.

It didn't happen with Steve Harmison for years.

If it was critical depression,

then... I can see it was. I can see it was.

Looking back now, having been through what I've been through,

I can see that you were clearly depressed.

You don't celebrate wickets, cos your emotions have gone.

Lethargy - you've no energy. You can't get up for anything.

-All classic things, and the drink just fuels that, if you like.

-Yeah.

So you're bad, therefore you have a drink

and you wake up even worse.

-Yeah, I...

-And it's...

That's a bad road you went down.

But...

-Somebody should have told you.

-Yeah.

Neil probably knows me as well as anyone.

He's been there all the way through my professional career

and seen every emotion I've been through

and he's been through depression himself

so to turn around and say them things to me...

..in some ways it's a surprise, but in some ways it's not.

I think in a lot of ways, I was lucky

because...I wasn't in a great place,

but I never got as bad as some of the people we've spoken to.

And...I managed to come out the other side of it.

I'd hate to think what it must be like

to feel even worse, like some of these guys have done.

-I couldn't hit him.

-You couldn't hit him?

-When I played against him, when I used to practise.

-OK.

-So I've no chance now.

-Not when the pressure's on.

I'm going to run at him. Run at him. First bowl, come on.

Watch it, fella, watch it.

Come on, Murali! Come on, boy.

FREDDIE LAUGHS

Come on, Murali, come on, boy!

Yes!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You properly wouldn't necessarily associate them feelings with me.

People would probably think, "Ah, he's a bit of a laugh,

"bit of fun, he'll just laugh it off."

But it was definitely not the case.

APPLAUSE

So far, I've been chatting to people

about sport being one of the causes of depression,

playing at the highest level.

But I wanted to come to Arsenal and see a scheme

where they use sport to tackle it.

It's a real paradox in the fact that

they're using sport, in a way, to combat it.

I'm nervous about coming here, cos sport's been good to me.

I've experienced some amazing things through playing cricket

and I don't want to turn up here and have them look at me and think,

"Listen to this fella here,

"just whingeing on about something we'd love to be doing.

I suppose that's why, in some ways,

people have found it hard to speak about in the past

so it'll be interesting to see how they react to us.

Here he is, Henry.

I was diagnosed properly when I was about ten or 11, with depression

and I've always been depressed, with suicidal thoughts and stuff.

How did it feel? How did it impact on your life?

I didn't really understand it when I was little.

I don't know, it didn't make much sense.

But now I've got older, I can understand and recall back on stuff,

it made my life pretty miserable.

I was always feeling very alone most of the time,

didn't want to get out of bed.

I'd spend days in bed without getting out at all,

literally just go to the loo and then back into bed.

I didn't want to do nothing, didn't feel motivated to do anything,

just hated being here, really.

One more!

Running around for two hours, you get your endorphins running.

You feel great, and it's not just the football,

it's the friends you make afterwards.

It's about social inclusion, and I can honestly say

that these people on this project

are some of my closest friends now.

Watch him, watch him!

My depression's just gone - not gone, it's still there,

but it's not as bad since I've been coming to the project.

It's been great and it brought me out.

Before I came, I wasn't doing any work or anything.

I was doing a bit of voluntary work here and there,

but this gave me the confidence to get the work.

Does it help the likes of yourself when football stars talk about it

or cricketers and people come out,

does it make you feel, "It's not just me"?

It's nice to know there's other people out there suffering.

-I know that sounds weird...

-No, I understand, yeah.

..but there's other people you know suffer with it. You're not alone.

So that does make sense,

but I personally would say that they're kind of different,

the depressions with celebrities

and what I'd say are normal people that aren't celebrities,

cos they've a lot of extra added pressures.

When we're ill, we can go to the doctor and say this, this and that,

and try and just relax,

go to hospital, to day centres, come to projects like this,

but because they're in the public eye

it's a bit more difficult for them to get the help they need

-because it's going to be in the papers.

-Yeah.

So they don't really get a break from it.

Yes!

Oh!

CLAPPING

'Watching and seeing it, it's almost taking sport back to basics,

'taking it back to its purest form, which is to be enjoyed.

'And that's the reason we all got into it in the first place.'

Man of the match, yeah?

Man of the match.

'So I can understand why it's working.'

I think with meeting the people I have done, and chatting to them,

it has helped me tackle

some of the trickier times through my career and my life.

A lot of the disappointments I had as a player, I've tried to forget

and probably in some ways bury my head in the sand a little bit,

but being in front of people, I think, has helped me

tackle some of the things that have happened, square on.

I live with my insecurities and my doubts, like everybody else.

I think moving forward,

I can let go a little bit.

I don't want to have to pretend to be something I'm not

nor do I want to play up to what everybody wants from me.

I think now it's just time for me to be myself.

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