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Given the stigma that often comes with mental illness, it’s perhaps no surprise that footballers who suffer from depression often do their utmost to hide it. Following the relatively recent suicides of Gary Speed and Robert Enke, former professional footballer and current PFA chairman Clarke Carlisle hosts this very candid programme about the pressures that modern footballers are put under, and why so many contemplate ending their own lives.
Interviewing the likes of Simon Jordan, Lee Hendrie, Leon McKenzie and Aidy Boothroyd, Carlisle is very frank and open about his own experiences with depression, as are the various interviewees. Carlisle is an articulate and affable host who isn’t averse to displaying his own vulnerabilities, and while ‘Football’s Suicide Secret’ feels its length and is slightly dry at times, this is still a timely offering which tackles an obvious yet unsolved problem in the modern game.