Episode 22: Dean Windass
More places to listen:
Dean Windass was never really an elite player at the top flight of English football. He is a legend of Hull City – that Yorkshire club with great history - but Hull rarely find themselves in the top flight of English football.
He had many great moments at Hull – some of the best in that clubs history – and when Dean retired, they offered to build a statue of him in front of the stadium, but he declined the offer saying, “I could not think of one working man who had a statue’ – its sounds fake I know, but it is true.
Like many players of his era, he did not have an easy time upon leaving the game. He struggled with depression and turned to alcohol to anesthetize said depression which made him more depressed and round and round he went.
There were dark times and after a failed suicide attempt, his friend (and great ex player) Chris Kamara got him into a rehab facility. It was a very hard time, but he was able to get sober, face his demons and turn his life around.
He then began offering help to other players – help that he did not really see when he left the game. He began posting an inspirational twitter vid every morning - which went viral and garners quite the following to this day. He even gave a TED talk on his experiences and is so brutally honest and vulnerable about what he went through - I recommend you check it out.
So, a bit of a different one this one, but if you give it a go – I hope you get something out of it. It is one of those episodes where I kind of wanna say, pretentious as it may sound, maybe forward it onto a friend who is not in the best of spots – it may help them….
So here we go - #22 Soccerpod – Dean Windass.