When The
Crowds Have Gone

There’s something uniquely joyous about Sports Personality of the Year. The shortlist for the annual BBC award will be announced in the next few days before a star-studded ceremony in Salford on 19 December, at which millions of us will reflect on a remarkable year for British sport: a young woman from Bromley producing a tennis fairytale in New York; a diverse young England squad carrying the nation to its first men’s football final since Bobby Moore led the team in 1966; Team GB bringing 65 Olympic and 125 Paralympic medals home from Tokyo.

Behind every public triumph is a private story of hard work, resilience and sacrifice which leads our finest athletes to be put on a pedestal as role models, even national heroes. But here’s the part we don’t really talk about: that glory is fleeting, the spotlight soon moves elsewhere, and the darkness that remains can be terrifying. The result is a hidden epidemic that has affected retiring sportspeople at all levels, including several past recipients of that prestigious BBC trophy.

Andy Murray is one such example. After becoming the only three-time Sports Personality of the Year, including both of the years when he won Wimbledon, he suffered a career-threatening hip injury that left him with chronic pain and the prospect of being forced to quit the sport that had consumed his life. “I’ve spoken to sports psychologists and stuff,” he told The Telegraph in 2019. “I don’t know exactly what depression feels like, but I was definitely very low, and at different stages feeling quite lost.”

Murray’s case is far from unique. Recent studies by organisations including the International Olympic Committee, the BBC and the Professional Players’ Federation have all found that an alarmingly high proportion of sportspeople struggle after retiring.

The problem is that all sporting careers must one day end, at which point the person left behind can feel as though their entire life’s purpose has been snatched away. In some cases, especially when a career was ended prematurely by injury, the athlete might have to come to terms with regrets that some of the goals on which their entire existence had been focused will now never be reached. For others, the problem might be the opposite: having reached the pinnacle of their profession they worry that nothing else in their life will ever feel as good in comparison. “I've come across athletes and coaches who are the most depressed they've ever been after success,” Bloom added. “All of a sudden their ‘why’ is gone.”

One thing that isn’t gone after retirement for most athletes is the need to continue working: despite perceptions that all professional athletes live a lifestyle akin to a top Premier League footballer, the economic reality for most is not dissimilar to the rest of the population. The median salary in football’s Women’s Super League was still under £27,000 as recently as 2018, while men playing at the elite levels of rugby league and rugby union earned £40,000 and £70,000 respectively - decent money perhaps, but not enough to permanently stop earning in their mid-thirties. The vast majority will need to find new streams of income in the next chapter of their lives.

Of course, in addition to those who struggle there are also plenty of sportspeople who manage to find that second career without significant financial or psychological difficulty. Kathy Begley is a great example, having made the jump from horse racing to studying veterinary medicine at one of the world’s top universities.

So why is it that some flourish at that moment of change while others flounder? According to Simon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Players’ Federation (PPF), the more seamless transitions are often enjoyed by those who have laid the groundwork well before their playing days are over: the ones who have made the most of their contacts while they enjoy celebrity status, have mingled in the corporate boxes of their stadiums, and have used their downtime to plan for what’s next. “It’s an old cliche that failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” he says. “I think almost all sportspeople would know about that on a sports pitch, but it's even truer about your life after sports.”

Fortunately it seems that over the past 20 years a lot of clubs and player associations have developed services to help aid the transition. Rugby and cricket may be among the best-equipped: both have dedicated Player Development Managers (PDMs) who will work with players regularly on their long-term plans from the early stages of their careers, and who can point them confidentially towards mental health assistance where necessary.