The charity talking suicide prevention at football clubs: ‘We’re scared to speak about it, but we need to’

Key Highlights

• All that frustration disappears. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe video is being played to a room of nine apprentice footballers aged 16 and 17 at Leyton Orient, the League One side based in east London.
• The teenagers are fully locked in, eyes glued to the screen, as Rooney talks about that goal for Manchester United against Newcastle United in 2005. But this isn’t a session about finishing skills or technique. It’s a workshop about emotions and wellbeing.
• That is underlined further when a clip of David Beckham follows. The former Manchester United midfielder and England captain is shown being sent off for kicking out at Diego Simeone in the 1998 World Cup, before Beckham speaks of the fallout.
• He received death threats, people telling him he had “let his country and family down”.
• “I never felt so alone,” he adds.