Do managers need more psychological support?
Do managers need more psychological support?
In the aftermath of his side’s 5-1 defeat to Crystal Palace, newly installed Leeds United manager Javi Gracia cut a weary figure.
"I don’t relax: I live stressed, I feel the stress inside,” said the Spaniard, reflecting on his state of mind following only the eighth game of his tenure at the Elland Road club.
"I don’t have time for anything away from football. I spend 12 hours a day at the training ground and, apart from speaking to my family on the phone and watching football on television, the rest is dinner and sleep at the hotel.”
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Gracia's words offer a vital, troubling insight into the psychological impact of managing an elite sports team.
Whilst players’ mental health is gradually becoming the subject of more debate (with a Professional Footballers’ Association study published in 2022 revealing almost a quarter of surveyed players across the Premier League, English Football League and Women’s Super League suffered from severe anxiety), there’s sometimes a tendency to overlook the emotional toll placed on coaches and backroom staff.
Findings from recently-released research conducted by the US-based National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) suggest the blind spot - however small and unintended - needs to be corrected.
Almost one-third of the 6,000 coaches who responded to the NCAA’s wellbeing study said they "constantly" or "mostly every day" experienced mental exhaustion, feelings of being overwhelmed by all that they had to do, and sleep difficulties.
Concerns ranged from personal issues - such as finances and childcare - to the conditions within their working environment, such as job insecurity and budget uncertainty.
For those of the view that sport is a young person’s game, think again: almost 45% of millennials and Gen Z coaches polled by the NCAA said they were suffering from mental exhaustion, set against 34% of Gen X coaches and 19% of baby boomer coaches.
It’s also worth pointing out that whilst the pressure exerted by managing in England’s top division is intense, the same worries afflict coaches operating at any level of the professional game.
In a recent LinkedIn post, former Queens Park coach Mark Roberts talked candidly about how the job can “totally consume your life.”
In the face of undeniable stress, what support mechanisms can coaches count on?
The League Managers’ Association, the trade body representing Premier League, English Football League, Women’s Super League and Championship managers, offers a 24-hour mental health service to members.
Former Nottingham Forest and Wales psychologist Jennifer Lace, who joined the LMA last December as the organisation’s Head of Psychology and Mental Health, leads a team of consultant psychiatrists and psychologists in providing confidential 1-to-1 advice and support for members and their families. This can range from making urgent rehabilitation referrals to conversations about maintaining good mental health under pressure.
The question, given the ever-increasing demands on coaches, is: is this enough? The LMA ‘key contacts’ page on the organisation’s website lists 15 members of staff. Whilst this group is complimented by non-executives, committee members and consultants, do clubs need to be doing more themselves to support the people charged with running arguably the most important part of what, on occasion, are billion-pound businesses?
It was notable that Chelsea took the step of publicly outlining the psychological support on offer for Graham Potter, following the horrific online abuse and death threats aimed at the former Blues boss.
This seemed like a crisis management measure, rather than a structured support programme, although you could ask the question: with Potter in charge for only six months, how were the club's psychology team and other backroom staff members meant to implement a long-term framework to aid the ex-Brighton boss' mental health and performance?
Time also acts as a constraint on managers, who are rarely afforded the space to sit down and really consider the support on offer from organisations such as the LMA. Commenting on the findings of ‘Stress and Coping Experiences of UK Professional Football Managers During the COVID-19 Pandemic’, Sofie Kent, one of the paper’s authors, highlighted how a coach questioned as part of the study made the most of widespread postponements in 2020.
“One coach openly said that this time (the early stages of the pandemic), ‘has allowed me to embrace resources like the League Managers Association, which has enabled me to think a little bit more clearly about my diet, about how I'm managing my emotions outside of football and inside of football…and it's made me a better coach,’” said Kent.
It’s a point worth pondering given the demands of a profession that can also isolate the figures within it. As Micky Adams, the former Leicester manager, comments in Mike Calvin’s brilliant expose of football management, Living On The Volcano, “managers call each other mates, but we’re not really: I wouldn’t really trust a manager or a scout”. Regardless of whether Adams’ sentiments are widely shared, it’s surely important that his counterparts are given access to trusted advice and support, with the unrelenting pressure heaped on them showing no signs of slowing.
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