The ups and downs of goalkeeping have always required a strong mind. Access to mental health expertise can be crucial in managing the loneliest position on and off the pitch.
Goalkeepers are in the most intense profession even when they are a bystander. Being present in the moment on the pitch needs a switch always on standby. If a number one isn’t engaged they might, literally, drop the ball when the time comes for action. But what about when there isn’t a ball because of a loss of form, or, worse still, a long-term injury?
It was only last month that the Professional Footballers Association published the findings of a confidential wellbeing survey of 1000 players from the Premier League, the EFL, and the WSL. The results were telling.
More than two-thirds of the participants flagged that the fear of injury was detrimental to their mental health. Ultimately, the understanding of the player as a person rather than just as an asset is crucial in giving them the best platform for success.
Mark McGuigan's work tackles these problems on the day to day. The Northern Irishman spent years working in secure mental health environments, acute wards and then community-based services.
McGuigan is a qualified occupational therapist, helping people with recovery to ensure that a sense of purpose is maintained. That’s a handy transferable skill for football, especially when he recounts some stories of players being left to transport themselves back home from hospital.
This formed the seed of his idea in establishing Willow Grove Consultants in 2019. It is an organisation that aims to increase awareness for mental health support and difficulties that elite athletes, coaches and clubs face in a high- pressure environment.
“My original idea for the sports industry was from an occupational health angle to establish how we could support players with extended injury lay-offs. If it’s a few weeks then people tend to manage pretty well because there’s an end in sight. With injuries like an ACL, they are looking at up to 12 months when you don’t have that release of going to the gym or on the training ground. That has a direct impact on mental health. It’s what we in the business call ‘occupational deprivation.’
The formal definition is 'prolonged restriction from participation in necessary or meaningful activities due to circumstances outside the individual’s control.’
Not everyone can be Thibaut Courtois who declared: “I’m going to win the Champions League,” immediately after he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in August 2023.
McGuigan sent out a letter to pretty much all main professional football clubs at the start of this journey. The majority were ignored but what did come back gave a clue to latent opportunities. “I got two positive responses from Premier League clubs who said “we’ve got this covered” which meant that I was on to something.”
The lack of comeback perhaps wasn't a surprise given some of the rhetoric coming out of clubs.
“I had a discussion with someone who coached at one of the Premier League academies. He said to me, ‘Mark, you are asking a dangerous question. If you get your foot in the door people are going to ask who the heck are you because football is wedded to people who have been in the game’.”
“Secondly, he said if you ask ‘do you have mental health catered for?’ and the answer is ‘yes’ some are probably not telling the truth. A lot of clubs will have sports psychologists but they are not necessarily mental health specialists.”
The Manchester United fan, who could hear Peter Schmeichel bellow from way back in the North Stand at Old Trafford, says that he receives a disproportionately high number of clients from between the sticks.
“Even if it isn’t their fault, a goalkeeper takes on more because they are always in the shot when the ball goes in. There’s more media and pundit focus on them.” Careless talk from frazzled ex-footballers on the box doesn’t help although Shay Given, Ben Foster, and Joe Hart are providing a good counter-balance.
McGuigan helps his patients with grounding techniques. “What often happens is, when there’s a mistake or a goal there’s a tendency for anxiety and agitation to go through the roof which subsequently affects decision-making. So I concentrate on methods that centre the goalkeeper again. It could be looking at the posts or the corner flags which never move, just to reset. Breathing is also a good one.”
There are other ways that assist in emptying the corrupted data and going back to the game face. “Some keepers, I remember Jack Butland is one, unstrap their gloves and put them back on so they can go again.”
Having worked with so many of its ilk, McGuigan knows that the custodian is made from other materials. “I think keepers are wired very differently. They are in their own bubble in the way they train together. I do think it’s harder for them to impress the main group and head coach. They don’t get the same platform. Coaches can have their favourites too.”
Football’s mental health provision is still not riveted to the structure of the game. It was only just over a year ago that Dele Alli revealed his struggles in a famous interview with Gary Neville which exacerbated injury problems. Aaron Lennon claimed that football was doing nowhere near enough and called for external psychotherapists to monitor dressing rooms. Chris Kirkland has now become a revered and most public-facing mental health speaker
The goalkeeping world lost one of its own in 2009 when Hannover’s Robert Enke died. Ironically, his father, a sports psychologist, had a unique insight into his son’s depressive tendencies.
Enke was plagued with the fear of failure from an early age but kept his mental health struggles hidden to keep his career. His tragic suicide shocked a nation but changed the conversation around mental illness in football. “People now know that it is an illness, not a weakness,” said his widow Teresa. The late German national goalkeeper directly influenced the birth of Willow Grove.
Footballers battle against the social daily hate that plunders the ‘X’ waves. The PFA report found that 28 per cent said it affects their mental health. “There’s always limited value in reading lots of messages from nameless or faceless accounts. This is the world we live in where people can say things that have no consequences,” McGuigan said.
“There are ideas on how can we can embed structures in clubs to deal with mental health needs. One of the projects we are working on is defining all the different roles within the wellbeing perspective,” said McGuigan, who also does some consultancy work for the Player Care Group which interlocks with the spirit of his approach towards player welfare.
“We have found there is nothing mandatory about installing mental health support in clubs. There are a lot of clubs that say “get a psychologist in” but that’s not a protected title. We are now intent on clearly defining the roles of what constitutes a proper clinical specialist, a sports psychologist, or a mental health professional. It feels like it could be a game changer.”
“I’m lucky enough to be mentally strong, which I think is fundamental for a goalkeeper,” David de Gea once said. It’s true enough, but mental health support will still benefit those who think they are okay. One day they might not be.
The views and conversations expressed in this interview are those of the interviewee only. They do not necessarily have any relation to Goalkeeper.com, its partners, or relationships.
