Time to say goodbye

I stand up and clear my throat. I have spent most of the last few days carefully scrutinising every word I would say in this speech. I want to express just how much this club, this experience and my teammates mean to me. Yet, now that the time has come, all I can do is cry.?

Maybe seeing a teammate stand up and cry in front of everyone is more than words could ever say. That’s what I told myself, as I drove off from Dunstan Reserve, my final day as a Brunswick City player.

Football clubs are funny places. Things are constantly changing and you have to roll with the punches. At Brunswick, we went from clear on top of the table last year to desperately searching for our first win after 7 rounds this year. We went from discussing lavish end of season plans to crisis meetings in the blink of an eye. I had just returned from a four week injury and was desperate to help turn around our fortunes. Then, after one bad loss at home on Saturday, our coach decided it was time for him to step away. By Monday, I was meeting our new coaching staff. On Tuesday, I picked up another small injury, two weeks this time. Life seems to have a way of piling on when things aren’t going well. I spent the following two weeks working my way back into the team, only to get the flu and find myself back on the bench. A few weeks later, a new centre back arrived. In the space of 4-6 weeks I went from being the vice-captain and one of the first names on the team sheet, to out of the squad.

Those weeks were some of the toughest of my football life. I started to get the sense that the new coach didn’t rate me, that I wasn’t delivering what he was looking for. I felt a rush of familiar emotions flooding back, a stark reminder of past rejections. I began reading into every little cue that could either confirm or deny the way I was feeling. How was I being spoken to? What was their body language? Were people noticing what was going on? This all plays out publicly in front of everyone and is very exposing. I began to feel insecure, like every move I made was being judged. I was also feeling hurt. Did everything I achieve with this club and build with my teammates over the past four years count for nothing? I carried these emotions with me almost every session, every game, week after week.?

Over time, as the disappointments piled up, I began feeling myself detaching from the situation, no longer willing to get my hopes up. It was my protective mechanism, but all it did was create a sadness in me. I have always been really proud of how invested I am in training, my teammates and our team, and here I was with no energy to give. The sadness also told me that I had begun to process the fact that this incredibly rewarding and meaningful part of my career might be over, just like that. And with this cocktail of emotions swelling around inside me, I still had to perform, be a good teammate, be a good leader and try to win my spot back. Every fibre of my being was telling me to sulk and make clear to everyone that I rejected what was happening to me. I wanted validation, people to tell me I was hard done by and that it was a big mistake. To be honest, I no longer felt valued or valuable.

Why am I writing about this and exposing myself all over again? Well firstly, I am writing about it for those going through it right now. I think every athlete has been in a position like this at some point in their career (and probably will be again). I want them to know all the thoughts and feelings that went through my head to show that football is an emotional place and that their feelings are valid. You might have been taught to be professional, to show up every day ready to train and perform. You might have equated that to parking your emotions for a couple of hours until you get back in the car. You might have looked around the changing room and seen a group of players who always seem happy, always ready for banter. I know I certainly did. But that’s just not the reality. All those people who seem to have worked it all out, those teammates you admire, they deal with these things too. For most of us, our identity is deeply wrapped up in being a footballer. We place a lot of our self-worth on whether we are performing well or not. So, when things take a turn, like they did for me, that can be really tough to deal with. For a few weeks there, I was reminded how much of my self-worth I derive from football.?

The second reason I am writing this is to help me process this experience, and to encourage others to take steps to process their own experiences. Everyone needs to find their own way of doing so. In my time in football, I have not seen many great examples of this. For me, writing, talking to loved ones and seeing a psychologist are really helpful. These avenues help me understand how I am feeling and put words to it. And once I can understand what is going on, and have the emotional language to describe it, I then have the tools to better manage it. It doesn’t make the tough times less tough, but it does give me a chance to deal with them a bit better. I hope by sharing my experience, I can encourage other athletes and people in general to tackle their emotional wellbeing as hard as they tackle their physical wellbeing. Because at the end of the day, these tactics helped ground me in my really difficult period and if writing this can help one person, then I think it has all been worth it.

When I look back on those 4-6 weeks when everything was unravelling, I am really proud of myself. Sitting in the clubrooms that night alongside teammates, committee members and volunteers saying goodbye, I heard stories of the little things that I did that made a big difference to people. As I was hearing these things, I knew that I had been a great teammate and club person right to the very end. I was reminded that night that my value as a person goes way beyond my value as a footballer.

So, thank you Brunswick City. I joined the club in the off-season of 2018, looking for a home where I could build lifelong friendships and feel valued and respected. I wanted to have a positive impact on people and leave the place in a better position than when I arrived. Football clubs always move on pretty quickly, but as I sit here writing, I feel really proud of the impact I had at the club and am immensely grateful for all the special memories we shared. This emotion is what football is all about.