MENTAL HEALTH
the world’s biggest club, Manchester United. It was fantastic for the club and supporters but a nightmare for me.
I would have to prepare the pitch in what I knew would be sub-zero temperatures. Still, at that time, I was matchday safety officer and I would need to schedule a series of meetings with the local authority and police. A number of staff had just started working at the club and had no knowledge of what working big games required.
We knew we were facing a battle with Mother Nature. Temperatures were forecast to drop as low as minus seven and frost could have put the fixture in peril. The BBC, anxious not to risk losing such a high-profile live match, asked us to cover the pitch with an inflatable balloon and pump hot air under it, and I complied.
In conversation with John Docherty - my first team manager © Cambridge Newspapers
Before we knew it, match day was upon us. The Beeb’s Match of the Day host, Gary Lineker and his pundits were casting admiring glances at the playing surface and commenting on how good it looked. In view of what happened after the game, their opinions were helpful.
The evening was very challenging with
supporters trying to force their way in all over the stadium: attempting to surf over the turnstiles, climbing over walls and even the Supporters’ Club roof, and invading neighbouring residents’ properties. During an incident when the turnstiles were stormed, one of my stewards was injured, pinned against a bridge. But, it was what happened after the game that would later cause me immense emotional distress, whilst also perhaps helping me to find a long path to aid my recovery.
During the debrief, the injured steward described what had happened and showed me his injuries. He said he’d been so scared at one point that, pinned against the bridge’s steelwork and struggling to breathe, he thought he was going to die. Those words echoed in my head and refused to go away. I’d felt precisely the same thing at the time of my accident when I thought I was going to die.
I’d known that all was not well in my mental processes from a few weeks after the accident, but it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. As I finished the debrief, I felt dark shadows closing in around me. I had known
Stewards carrying out match day training; how to remove a patient from the stands
A number of very close friends started coming
round to see how I was. I appreciated these visits but found them enormously difficult experiences
52
PC December/January 2020
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