Leon McKenzie- Interesting article in the Daily Mail.

[Devils Advocate. 0]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2071792/Leon-McKenzie-suicide-attempt-depression--interview.html

[......and Smith must score. 1,596]

Just shows how even life in the fast lane has it''s problems.....

[Murphy and the Bricks 0]

Quite powerful stuff.....respect to him for coming forward. Its sad really to think that to us they are our heros, but inisde they are just human beings facing a lot of the same problems as us. Football is quite an isolated institution really & its stuck in the dark ages to certain extent, had this have come out at the time I''m sure he would have recieved a lot of stick from both oposing fans & players. So what if a player is overweight, Black, Gay etc etc, we really need to take a look at football & appreciate the players for what they are! I sat watching the Gazza interveiw with Piers Morgan & felt quite ashamed of myself for giving him stick, throwing mars bars at him etc, he was the greatest football I have ever seen & I didnt appreciate at the time!!!! 

[Lord Horn 0]

Very brave of him to put that out into the open - have even more respect for him now than what I had for him when he played for us.

[Syteanric 1]

I''ve always liked Leon... it took some courage to get all of that in the open and it was an interesting read.Hopefully he can move on with his life now and help others too. good luck to him.

[BarclayCanary (Former HDDH) 0]

Wish this man the best.

Just goes to show Money and Fame does not solve everyones problems.

[Norfolk Mustard 106]

As someone who provides ‘thinking skills’ training and development programmes I found Leon’s article interesting but not entirely surprising.

 

An NCFC legend who is a family friend first broke the news to me about Gary Speed’s death. I mentioned Gazza’s interview with Piers Morgan and we had a chat about a few things; I heard a few confidential things about Gazza which reinforces the overall state he’s in today – and we returned to subject of possible depression in some footballers. Stan Collymore, Gary Speed and others. The ex-player I was talking with reflected “as a top player you were not supposed to have any weaknesses – least of all mental resolve. If you did, you certainly wouldn’t want to share it”.

 

That appears to resonate with to Leon’s point; “There is no-one for the players to speak with”…

 

Sad isn’t it, that Leon was introduced to counseling only after he became really desperate. Performance coaching isn’t simply about an individual’s football technique; it all starts with ‘how you think’ and this article surely highlights the importance of getting that bit right. Professional football is a multi-million £ business with some highly valued players – yet few clubs seem to have a full time performance coach, let alone anyone else. (There are currently only 2 Premier League clubs employing a full time Performance Coach).

 

When Glenn Hoddle first made Eileen Drewery’s faith healing available to his England squad he was ridiculed across the majority of UK media.

 

Perhaps a few people today can look back and see that Hoddle’s intentions at the time were actually well-meant – at least players like Leon McKenzie might think so!

[BW 0]

Look Pete as spoken about in another thread one the reasons why this message board has gone down is because some posts get taken down while others don''t (inner circle members posts) all i mentioned was a reference to Damien Francis it was anything against posters here it was just mentioning a well known story is that so wrong?

[curly_whirly_tipz 0]

Thats a really interesting read but also really sad. Full respect to Leon for being open about it.

[Wings of a Sparrow 1,708]

Yep, I also liked Leon too -  I know he had his problems towards the end of his time with us but he always gave 100% . It took some guts to admit all that. Best of luck to him and hope he has a great last match with Kettering and goes out in style.