Game Day

Game day.

Game day. The day every footballer looks forward to. It’s why the training is done all week, so that the team can go out at their peak and perform. To say I hated playing games would be a bit strong but each game brought with it a set of emotions that’s were exhausting and performance inhibiting. I reached a point later on in my career where games made me feel sick to my stomach with anxiety. A strange admission from someone who got paid good money to perform at a professional level but there you go, I am being 100% honest. A typical game for me would start the night before. I would check my stuff was ready for the next day, track suit and personal items. Then I would attempt to go to bed early, typically I would lay awake for a while, sleep fitfully and wake early. Straight away I would feel tired and lacking energy due to lack of sleep, a bad start to,the day. I tried many different routines over the years and everyone had the same outcome. The last 4 years of my career I was popping Night Nurse for fun before games just to get some sleep.

 Nothing I ate every settled properly for my pre match meal and I would feel anxious and nervous in the build up to the game. This nervous energy would continue right into my warm up. I would say 9/10 times in my warm ups I felt lethargic, leggy and tired before the game. I now realise this was anxiety, performance anxiety. Worrying about how I was going to play. I played as if the world was on my shoulders and I’m sure it showed in performances. I tried different food, warm ups, routines and even fluid intakes. Nothing would alter the outcome. The first half was key to my performances in most games, if I was strong and played well I would derive confidence from that and I would go on and usually play well. Mistakes early in a game were a killer and every minute felt like an hour. I set myself standards but if I fell short I would beat myself up.

Game state also played a big part in my mind set. If we were winning 2-0 I would relax, 0-0 with 10 mins to go I would feel sick. Most players enjoy playing on TV but it had the opposite effect for me, more pressure, more people seeing potential mistakes, more risk. I hated it. Even now I can remember mistakes I made in games 10 years ago. They are burned into my mind forever. We played on Sky TV and we lost 1-0. I made a mistake for the goal in the first half and I can picture it like it was yesterday. I went on to play superb despite what I said earlier, a result of probably things not being able to get any worse, in my mind anyway.

Reflecting back on this part of my career I can see how much of a handicap it was, playing with a penalty every week. I’m certain a sports psychologist could of helped me but it’s too late now. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I enjoyed the final whistle going. If we won, I played well then it was enjoyable but if it went the other way, heavy defeat and a poor performance with mistakes made the following few days would be horrific. I look back now and I can see the early signs of my depression. I would retreat into my shell and stop interacting. I would be quiet around the changing room and on the training field. That last game would replay in my mind over and over. I wouldn’t sleep and then his would lead me to become exhausted. A vicious circle of self doubt leading into, lethargy leading into a poor performance into self doubt and so on. It’s difficult to pinpoint when I started feeling like this but whom knows what I could of achieved without it holding me back?

Thanks for reading.