'It’s Just a Game' : Reflecting on my experience with Rugby Union and Mental Health

‘It's just a game’ is a phrase I have heard many times over the past nine years as a follower of Rugby Union. I heard it from my family as Wasps crashed out of Europe in the Semi Final of the Champions Cup in 2016 and I heard it from my friends when we exited at the Quarter Final stage of the same competition against Leinster in 2017. I heard it most loudly from a certain individual after our heart-breaking loss to Exeter Chiefs in the Premiership Final of the same year. Those are only three of many examples where I have been told that Rugby is ‘just a game’. To me though, Rugby is, and always will be, far more than 30 players on a field running after an egg-shaped ball.

When I began following Rugby Union in 2012, at 16 years old, I was starting on a journey that nobody wants. Mental Health Problems were becoming increasingly prevalent for me although, as yet, I had no idea what they were nor of the scale of what I was facing. At that stage, I was still a young man desperately fighting for my future and trying to acquire the right grades to set me up for what was to come next. My first encounter with Rugby Union sparked a flame of interest but did not immediately create a raging fire of passion – chiefly because my mind was still very much on my studies and, of course, sneaking several bottles of whatever I could find in my Father’s cupboard into town after school. Things changed when I went to university two years later in 2014. My parents had just bought a subscription for BT Sport and I was able to watch more and more Premiership games on my laptop. I quickly began to develop the interest that I had in Rugby Union into a passion and, after my first game on a chilly afternoon in January 2015, visits to the then Ricoh Arena (now Coventry Building Society Arena) became very frequent. By late 2015, Wasps Rugby had become an obsession for me. Around this time my mental health was stabilising. I had a good group of friends around me at Huddersfield where I studied and a fairly strong and stable romantic relationship. To all intents and purposes, I had it all.

By mid-2017, so much of what I had established was falling apart. In the April I completed my dissertation project and left Huddersfield to return to my family home, leaving behind friends and a measure of my independence. In June, my relationship of four years ended rather abruptly after months of strain and arguing. All this set-in motion a downward trajectory for my mental health. It was not all bad, I found work at a local Budgens supermarket and, for the first time, I was able to direct money to what really mattered to me, the rugby. Mid to Late 2017 was a time where I relied on, and clung to, Rugby. After a pretty crippling few months in the aftermath of a failed relationship, I was able to attend the opening six rounds of the Premiership, Home and Away. I remember my job as having worked perfectly – I having worked on Sundays and travelled to watch Wasps on the Saturday. They were even supportive in allowing me to swap weekend shift days as needed. At this stage of my life, Wasps Rugby came to my rescue. It was liberating. It was the very source of happiness that I needed in a fairly bleak period and, incidentally, it would not be the last. Between January 2018 and mid-2019, I went through a phase of very good mental health. I was in the process of completing a part time master’s degree – travelling backwards and forwards to the University of Birmingham from Buckinghamshire. I travelled to Wasps games as often as I could, usually every second weekend and it continued to have a stabilising effect on me.  

In August 2019 I suffered a major mental health breakdown after being prescribed clarithromycin for an Ear Infection. Though denied by medical professionals even now, I believe strongly that the medication was the root cause of the severe mental reaction that I had. After all, despite how regular mental health problems had become, I had never before had an attack of that magnitude nor, thankfully, since. During that period, the role of my parents in caring for me was hugely significant. Effectively, they had to ensure that I still functioned and I will forever be in their debt. Friends too were on hand to help. For some time, I was little better than a vegetable, existing somewhere on the peripherals but never really being…there. Yet again, as in mid-2017, I needed rugby. I travelled with a cohort, my parents, brothers and friends, to the Ricoh Arena for a player signing and meet-and-greet day. I reflect now that not a single player or staff that signed my items that day knew quite exactly the significance of what they were doing. After all, why would they? I was just one person in a line of many. To me though, that day was so very important. Just as in 2017 when I was able to attend Wasps games every week for the first time, it wasn’t just a game. It was a lifeline. In fact, I would go so far as to say this was therapy. Rugby therapy. It gave me something to hold on to when I was in a dark, dark place and when everything else seemed totally pointless. It gave me meaning and purpose; a reason to wake up every morning. The months that followed August 2019 saw a gradual healing but, even now, I am not yet fully recovered from the events of that summer. In all likelihood, I will never fully recover. 

My experience of rugby therefore is perhaps different to other people. Rugby has always been an important mechanism in helping me to deal with dark moments in my life and will continue to do so moving into the future. On the outside Rugby may be just a game, but to me it means so much more.