MENTAL HEALTH First day as Head
Groundsman - the youngest in the Football League in 1979
I felt dark shadows closing in around me. I had known that I had been wearing a mask making out that I was fine,
over compensating how I felt by throwing in extra smiles
that I had been wearing a mask making out that I was fine, over compensating how I felt by throwing in extra smiles, when really I was climbing a greasy pole and never reaching the top; the harder I tried to climb the more tired and fed up I became. Before the accident, whilst always happy to help anyone out, I would have my say if I felt I was in the right. Now I felt I had become like a limp, wet lettuce and would do anything to avoid confrontation in any form.
I know now that the cocktail of drugs I was taking to combat the pain from my injuries and various surgical procedures was a major contributor to the way I was feeling. Waking up every day in pain and discomfort takes its toll. Little was I to know that I would be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and would undergo harrowing, intense therapy that would challenge me to the very core of my soul.
As if I didn’t have enough problems … the day after the Manchester United game, I was made aware that their manager, Louis van Gaal, had complained about the pitch. I found that mystifying when his backroom staff had nothing but praise for the surface,
but my surprise and gratification when the media came out in support of me, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Mick Dennis, at that time the football correspondent of the Daily Express, but if I ever do I’ll shake his hand. I’ll always be grateful for his support in the story published four days after the game, from which I’m quoting large chunks below.
Under the headline ‘Louis van Gaal is the loser in this pitch battle’, Mick wrote: ‘Let me tell you about Ian Darler. He’s the man whose life’s work was gratuitously insulted by Louis van Gaal.’
The ‘supremely arrogant’ van Gaal was, he said, dismissive of all the hard work I’d done and too self-absorbed to offer any congratulations to our team. ‘Instead, a predictably familiar bleat about the referee was embellished with a needless and inaccurate moan about the condition of the pitch. And that traduced Darler’s achievements and efforts.’
It was after this game that i made the club management aware that I was struggling and that I had to undergo more surgery. I’ll be honest: I was disappointed that no
assistance in any form was offered and I was left to fend for myself.
I was expected to be off manual work for six weeks, but I’d planned the appointment so that it would cause as little disruption as possible to the club. I wouldn’t be able to cut the pitch for six weeks, but I reckoned I would be back at the club to run the office side of things, act as Stadium Manager and matchday safety officer and cope with the other paperwork at home.
The operation went ahead, but I struggled with the after-effects of the anesthetic and was kept in hospital for an extra twenty-four hours. I was glad to get home, but then I was taken ill and the doctors were concerned that there was a blood clot on my lung. There were a series of tests and scans to endure, at the end of which they found that I’d picked up an infection,
I’m not exaggerating when I say that this experience was a life changer. I struggled for months with pain from the hip surgery and seemed constantly to be on antibiotics for the lung infection. I would finish each course believing the infection had gone, only for it to make itself felt again a week
Ian far left, carrying out a pitch inspection with (from left) Phil Hough, Mike Bullivant and legendary manager Chris Turner
PC December/January 2020 53
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