In the final part of our interview with Cedric Anselin, we look at how the former Bordeaux and Norwich City player has fought depression, what he does now to help others with mental health issues, and how we can survive without football during lockdown.
“I always say we are born with a mouth to talk, two ears to listen and two eyes to observe.”
It might sound like simple anatomical advice, but Cedric Anselin puts things in perspective with this simple statement.
After a football career that spanned the heights of playing in a UEFA Cup Final and representing league clubs in at least five different countries in Europe and South America, Cedric found himself trawling the non-league scene in East Anglia. He had given up on his dream, the motivation was gone, and the dark wave of depression was deeply embedded in his mind.
Norfolk was a natural home for him. He had met his wife there and had two boys who kept him going and were his true motivation. Football, while still a passion, almost became a side-note to the orchestra inside his mind.
In 2017, he was at his lowest ebb. He had thought about suicide and had planned it, he was at his lowest point. But he reached out. Firstly, to another ex-professional who has had his demons, Clarke Carlisle. His discussion and help with Carlisle has been much-reported in previous interviews, so instead we concentrate on his recovery, and the hope he finds even in the darkest of days.
“You need to have the courage to be brave enough to put your hands up and say ‘I’m not right’. You have to re-educate yourself, learn.
“When you have depression, you don’t want to have those negative people around. It took me three years to get where I am today. I have built myself and I have people around me with positive energy who make me who I am today.”
I take the opportunity to tell Cedric about my own depression and anxiety that hit me at the same time, around three years ago. I tell him although I have been through it, I feel I have learnt about myself, my limits. I know that talking, both with friends and professionals helped. In my experience, I have come out the other side – it was more of a short-lived (well, two-year long) episode. Of course, being the gentleman he is, Cedric listens.
He lives with it, every day. “In my experience, I don’t think there’s another side – you live with your depression on a daily basis. The key thing is having the tools to get through bad days and feel a bit low. You have to know your triggers.
“All our coping mechanisms are different; mine is probably different from yours. When I feel low, I tend to detach myself from people, see – I don’t always preach what I say! I reset the button in my mind, and I train, go outside, run a lot, eat healthily and drink a lot of water. But we need to be able to talk, you’re absolutely right.”
Football is a ‘big’ thing, a steamrolling juggernaut that takes over many people’s lives, perhaps highlighted with the current money-centric desire for football to begin again during the biggest global crisis since World War II. But while football is a big thing, Cedric explains that it is the little things that we maybe take for granted, which can bring the greatest pleasure.
“You must find the little things that make you happy. My biggest satisfaction was last year when I was invited by NCFC to go to the game and take my kids with me. I was very honoured and privileged. It was great that Norwich City, and Stuart Webber, gave me the ‘birthday box’ (a lounge area at NCFC awarded to someone on their birthday). I was with my kids there.
“I had never been able to take them to a football game, or a play park, or even do the school run because I was not well in myself. I couldn’t get out of the four walls of my house. But just that, creating memories which my kids will remember their whole life, was special. Incredible.”
It’s a positive story, and at a time when the negativity of the media (take note Piers Morgan) can have a bad effect on our mental health and wellbeing, we are all perhaps finding those little positives from a bad situation.
Let’s not forget the effect of the loss of football and sport in all this, from playing it to watching it – many people live for it. They go to work and earn their money to follow their team up and down the country, to whatever dingy hole or corporate-sponsored 60,000-seater monstrosity they’re playing in. Because for many, football is life and means socialising with friends, having a beer, and a catch-up.
I ask Cedric what advice he would give people at this time of near lockdown.
“For fans who work all week and then have the release of going to a game, it is their highlight of the week. For people who are depressed and find the light of their life is going to the football, it is difficult. For football fans, it can be their life. It gives freedom and happiness.
“We all love different things in life, and they’ve stopped. How have I dealt with that? I sat down and made a plan so I could look ahead. I am missing things too; I commentate on Norwich games for Radio Norfolk, I am Norwich Utd manager, so I have missed the relationship with my players, that connection.”
Cedric offers some perspective on the situation; a perspective you feel he has trained himself to have and which he now inspires others with
“But you must remember there is a light at the end of the tunnel and they will be able to go to football again. Sadly, many people have died, and we need to understand that the current situation is deadly. We need to be safe and well and at some point, we will be able to get on with football again.”
Nowadays, Cedric’s biggest passion is being a mental health advocate for younger people.
“We need to educate the next generation,” he says with a determination in his eyes. He takes satisfaction from knowing that he is helping people and speaking out. Just this last week he was on Sky Sports News discussing the issue.
Cedric keeps himself busy. He teaches over 20 students on a BTEC sports programme, manages Norwich United and commentates for Radio Norfolk on City games, but it is family that inspires him.
“My boys are my priority, my strength, my force – if they can see me dealing with my issues, it will be an example for them if they face it in their life.”
There is one thing which perhaps Cedric needs to make time for. “I have no time to date anyone. It is a bit difficult in lockdown!” he quips.
As the interview draws to a conclusion, the kitchen Cedric is sitting in is getting darker and darker, and he turns it around and asks how I am. Suddenly, I am the interviewee. But it is because he genuinely cares. We have a further 20-minute chat about life in general, football, our hopes for the future.
By the end we agree to meet for lunch when the lockdown is over.
Perhaps then we can again use our mouths to talk, our ears to listen and our eyes to observe. Maybe even from less than two metres apart.
This series of interviews has been conducted in line with Mental Health Awareness week, from 18-24 May. Visit www.mentalhealth.org.uk for more information.
Cedric Anselin is an ambassador for the ‘Get Set to Go’ initiative from mind.org.uk, which helps people find the physical, social and mental benefits of being active.
Finally…
Irrelevant but fun … a light-hearted set of 10 questions with Cedric.
PU: Who is the best player you’ve ever played with?
CA: Zinedine Zidane
PU: I thought that would be the answer. Next question, what did you think of Shaun Carey’s hair?
CA: What now, or when I was playing with him?
PU: When you were playing with him.
CA: Erm (laughs) he had very long curly hair, he had a moustache as well, he looked like D’Artagnon from the Three Muskateers!
PU: What’s his hair like now, is be bald?
CA: Yeah, he has kept his hair very short.
PU: Where’s better, Paris or London?
CA: Oh, to be fair there’s a lot of French people who live in London, a massive community. I don’t know because I grew up in Paris. But I would say London.
PU: What’s your favourite place to visit in Norfolk?
CA: Holt. I love the village, a lot of antique shops, I have a lot of old-fashioned values in my life.
PU: When you were at Norwich, who was the best and worst dressed player?
CA: The best, I would say Andy Marshall. He could have put a bin bag on and he would have looked gorgeous! The worst one? It was a long time ago.
PU: I saw a picture the other day of the squad back then, and you all look pretty terrible to be honest.
CA: Thinking about it I would say Phil Mulryne.
PU: Phil Mulryne? Well he’s a priest now, so he probably can’t choose what he wears.
PU: What do you think of Ipswich?
CA: (Long silence) Erm…What can I say, because I don’t really like Suffolk?
PU: It has been such a bad demise…
CA: They’ve had such a bad season. What do I think? An empty stadium, they have no fan base. It won’t be any different playing behind closed doors.
PU: Can you recommend a good TV series to watch during lockdown?
CA: I don’t watch TV or have Netflix. I have been watching SAS with Anthony Middleton.
PU: Who do you think is the best current Norwich player and why?
CA: The best in the squad? Emi Buendia (no hesitation)
PU: I did an article on him a couple of weeks ago for our website.
CA: Yes, Buendia, he will go really far. If he can calm down his temper a little, he will be a top, top player.
PU: As much as I would hate him to leave, Atletico Madrid will be a great move for him.
PU: Last question, what would you have advised me to stick my banner up on the wall with at Carrow Road (see Part 1)
CA: I don’t know, couldn’t you find some blu-tac?
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** Thanks to the guys at headersandvolleys.co.uk/ for allowing us to use their image to head this piece – Ed
Very interesting article Paul. I feel for Cedric with all that has happened.
Footballers are feted at such a young age, clubs do everything for them it is no surprise that many after they finish playing end up with gambling, drug or depression problems or all three. And so many get divorced again another stressful event in anyone’s life.
Can you imagine being that precocious talent at 13- 14 so many clubs want you, they regiment your life in many good ways. But I have read tales of players not knowing how to pay a gas bill once their career is over. Imagine being that most “wanted” person for all those years and then 2 decades later you totally have to fend for yourself. It is irrelevant how much money you have, wealth does not equate to happiness in all cases.
From what I have heard our own Club do a lot these days to try to ensure that doesn’t happen.
The other thing I want to say is that depression can affect anyone. I am now over 60 and have had a great life despite some serious health scares. And I have to my own mind always kept a cheerful disposition in the main.
But 6 years ago whilst my Mum & Dad were living at home with dementia and refusing to go into care, where they needed to be they let slip something so bad about my past it affects me to this day.
With the worry over Mum & Dad and this new situation I struggled badly and with the help of my wife I realised I was suffering depression. I didn’t want to do anything, was getting panic attacks and little jobs seemed to much to do.
I spoke to my GP who was brilliant and he got me in touch with Wellbeing, which is a free service for people with depression. It may not help everyone but I am pleased to say it did me. It is not a cure all but it helps me realise how to deal with things.
I also had great help from my friends and it has got to be said meeting them and talking about football especially our great team helped immeasurably.
I hesitated in writing this, because it is still difficult, but if it will help one person who at this moment in time doesn’t know where to go to then I hope the route I took may be of some help.
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