00:03I think the world is changing and has a greater understanding that everybody
00:08faces these challenges. We all have mental health and it's how we give
00:13ourselves the best opportunity of thriving in the environment that we live.
00:16During the pandemic I've been very conscious that the message is coming
00:20through on television. There's a really strong awareness of mental health and
00:26its importance to our whole society. With you Gareth is there one incident in
00:31particular that sort of you feel really started off your understanding and your
00:37feelings towards mental health? Well I've had quite a high profile situation that
00:44in missing the penalty with England without doubt when I look back that was
00:48professionally the most challenging experience that I've been through. You're
00:53in a probably the biggest game the team have had for 50 years at that or 40
00:59years at that time. I forget how many years of hurt we've had now.
01:01We've had a lot of hurt, don't worry. There's a large number of people who can
01:05relate to that. So the country was on a tidal wave of emotion and good feeling
01:12and then you walk away from the stadium feeling you know you're the person
01:18ultimately that is responsible for that finishing. I never felt anger actually I
01:24just felt regret, remorse, responsibility to a small degree that still lives with me.
01:30To have failed under pressure under that huge spotlight is hard professionally to take.
01:36The fact that we're sat here and talking about your penalty you know that moment for you is it fair
01:42that we're still talking about it? Well it's tough because even now I still have
01:50regrets for the team I played with so although I've had an element of
01:55resurrection and redemption and but the team I played with missed the
02:00opportunity to win a major tournament and those guys didn't get another chance
02:04and of course because we've been sat at home all summer everybody keeps replaying those
02:10games. I can't get away from it. I can't avoid it. So there's a reality that actually we have to
02:18face
02:18those things. We can't hide from them. I can't hide from the fact that that
02:22happened and then I have a decision and a choice as to how I approach dealing with it
02:28and time has given me the opportunity to put that into better perspective. What
02:35what we've just lived through for the last three months as an example, where does
02:40missing a penalty kick actually have any importance in in the overall scheme of life?
02:46And do you think if there'd been a bit more of a formal structure around the
02:49England team back then do you felt you could have opened up more lent on more
02:54support either from your teammates or from the sort of club, the country kind of
02:58structure around you? I remember going back to the hotel and having dinner and
03:02sitting with Stuart Pearce who'd lived through what I was going to live through
03:06so he was able immediately to give me some information around what the next few
03:11months might look like, the things I might experience. Looking back that was
03:15invaluable really. When you've messed things up as I have and you realize that
03:20professionally that's probably as difficult as you're going to face. It
03:25almost liberates you to say right okay let's just attack life and I know the
03:30negative consequences that could be there. Similar when I was a young manager
03:35and I lost my job, the loss of self-esteem for any person losing their job and a
03:40lot of people are going to experience that over the next few months sadly is a
03:45huge blow, huge blow and you don't know how to talk to your own family about it, you
03:51don't know how to look at people as you walk down the street, you assume
03:54everybody's looking at you and they're probably not but you're the inner voice
04:00in your head which is such a key to everybody's well-being is telling you all
04:07of these things and can be running away with itself and catastrophizing and the
04:11idea of being able to talk about it is not a weakness, the idea of being able to be
04:14open about your emotions and fix a problem is a positive, it's a strength not a
04:18weakness and I think that's that culture is something that we hopefully are seeing
04:22a slight shift in but we need to you know use certain vehicles like professional
04:27sportsmen and women to to enhance that that message. What are you doing
04:31yourself as England manager to to kind of enhance that and make sure that's
04:34happening? If we look at what's important moving forward for young players, old
04:40players, society generally especially with everything we've experienced over the
04:45last few months then people's mental health is is one of our primary focuses
04:52it will have such a big effect on on our society it's going to be more
04:56challenging we're going to go through challenging period as a nation and and the
05:00whole world is going to go through a challenging period so we have to have the
05:04support there for people. I recognize that you know as a manager I need to step up
05:08even more and make sure that to begin with our own players are cared for but
05:15can we affect the wider game I think that's one of the reasons we're talking
05:19because the message in a high-profile way can start to influence people's
05:24thinking. And Gareth is there a is there a message a specific kind of message you'd
05:28like to get to the fans the players to sort of the wider footballing community
05:32about how you feel about mental health and the importance of it? I think there's very
05:37often this feeling I'm the only one there's nowhere to go and some of the
05:40most successful people in the world have had these issues or have problems
05:45with self-confidence, self-belief it doesn't have to be an extreme case there
05:51there are various issues with people's mental health that can affect how they
05:55feel or how they perform and it's making sure that we don't feel there's a
06:00stigma for people that it's acceptable to look for help.
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