How can we help players cope with career transitions?
How can we help players cope with career transitions?
Teammates with hands on their heads. Opposition players vomiting in the nearby goalmouth. Spectators silenced. David Busst's last minutes on a Premier League pitch left an indelible mark on everyone inside Old Trafford on 8 April 1996.
For those unfamiliar with Busst's story, the upset that engulfed Manchester was triggered by arguably the most serious injury suffered by a footballer playing in England’s top flight over the last 30 years.
Scrambling to connect with a loose ball inside United’s penalty area, the former Coventry City defender was caught between two slide tackles, causing, in his words, “my leg to snap halfway up my shin.”
Subscribe to The Mind Room for free & receive articles like this in your inbox every week
Busst’s break - an extensive compound fracture of the tibia and fibula - was compounded by a recovery that saw the Birmingham-born centre half contract MRSA whilst in hospital (an infection that almost led to doctors amputating his leg). The complications effectively ended his professional career. Busst announced his retirement in November 1996.
His adjustment to a life away from playing football was not without its challenges. He found it difficult to watch the game for at least 12 months after the injury (“I was a little bit fearful of any contact”) and underwent 24 operations during a two-year period, just to allow him to walk again.
But when I spoke to Busst in 2021 (a conversation you can listen to via the audio player below), it was clear that an identity forged away from football - he worked for an insurance company before becoming a professional, only signing for Coventry when he was 24 - was crucial in coping with retirement. As he put it:
“I’d made a living outside of the professional game before, so I knew I could go back to a normal working life.”
But Busst's transition is far from the norm. Almost 40% of retired international athletes who participated in a 2021 survey exhibited symptoms of psychological distress when retiring - double the rate seen among the general population.
The research highlighted loss of athletic identity - viewed by some as a means of enhancing performance during a sporting career - as one of the most significant catalysts of this trend (alongside the extent to which career goals were met, whether retirement was voluntary or involuntary and retirement age). As the study’s authors say:
”Adjustment will be more positive to the extent that athletes have more resources (to cope with retirement), diversity in identity, and perceived control over retirement.”
It’s a sentiment that supports growing calls for young players to be afforded more ‘person-centred’ coaching. Busst name-checked the PFA’s work in helping youngsters who “have got this one dream in their head that they’re going to play football at the highest level” understand the chances of making a living from football and the opportunities on offer outside of the game. Indeed, a recent study of the Spanish youth system, drawing on responses from 515 Spanish footballers aged between 14 and 19, showed that 90% of all academy players don’t become professional footballers.
Moving away from a culture of perfectionism, focused solely on results, presents an opportunity to aid both short-term performances and mental health, as well as helping players establish an adaptive psychological profile that prepares them for significant transitions, such as retirement. It’s an evolution you suspect David Busst would support.
Subscribe to The Mind Room for free & receive articles like this in your inbox every week
Thanks for writing about this. In my own work helping people with ADHD, I have started to refer to "Identity-Sensitive Dysphoria", to speak of that overwhelming difficulty that can be experienced by some people when there is a sudden loss of professional pathway/purpose (it can also be incremental, little by little over time). This is made so much worse when it also comes with a loss of physical abilities, in people who are used to thinking of themselves as strong and healthy machines. It also often involves a deep questioning of self for people who may never have questioned their abilities in the world to any great degree before. It's a major issue across many sports (and in professional life generally).