Why Hibs defender Mikey Devlin is urging clubs to do more for released players as team-mates praise Back Onside

During a frank discussion at the club’s training centre with David Cox and Lee Mair of Back Onside, and Easter Road colleagues Jimmy Jeggo and Joe Newell as part of the mental health charity’s new Changing Room Chat Show series, the 29-year-old said that teams had a duty of care to youngsters who were released in their teens but felt too few were assisting players who had had their dreams dashed.

‘I was fortunate; not every young player is’ – Devlin

He said: “I still feel that it’s difficult now for boys to talk about their struggles. As a kid coming through the academy set-up, all you’re taught about is how to make it as a footballer and what you need to do to get to the next stage. In my experience, nobody at any point was speaking about what happens if you don’t make it as a footballer. Nobody prepares you for it.

"How many boys did we play with who got full-time contracts but didn’t graduate out of the under-19s? Clubs don’t see it as their responsibility, whether you’re a senior pro transitioning out of football or a kid trying to find your way in the game. When all your hopes and dreams and aspirations have been first getting that full-time contract then breaking into the first team, if that’s taken away from you, how do you deal with it?

"I was released by Celtic at 16, went on trial at Hamilton, and it worked out but there’s loads of boys who didn’t have that. It was the done thing that you didn’t stay on at school and get your Highers. I was fortunate that my mum was a teacher and put pressure on me to get something before I left school but the majority of boys leave school with nothing and with all their eggs in one basket, and there’s no balance. You’ve got to be so many things to make it in football but where’s the support network? It’s only really now we have charities like Back Onside and the PFA. If we didn’t have that, what would we have? Clubs are abdicating responsibility – ‘he’s not our issue, he doesn’t play for us any more, he can fend for himself’.”

‘You never know what anyone is going through’ – Newell

Newell added: “For young lads, it’s the be-all and end-all to be a footballer. When you’re older you’ve got mortgages to pay, kids to provide for. It’s both ends of the spectrum. It’s mental health and it doesn’t matter who you are or your situation. There’s a lot more stuff about it now.

"Ben Chilwell [Chelsea and England defender] was talking about it before the England game, about how his injuries have affected him. He’s been seeing a psychiatrist and it’s really helped and he mentioned the mental health stigma as well. There’s more of a voice around it now. It’s great that Libby [Emmerson, Back Onside founder] is around our place a lot and I know a few of our young boys speak to her regularly.

"You never know what anyone is going through in life – especially in the changing room when the majority of lads come in bouncing around, but you might have one or two lads struggling and you just don’t know. That’s why it’s so good that Back Onside are here for the boys. It’s crucial."

Mair: ‘I wish we’d had something like Back Onside in my playing days’

Mair believes it needs to go higher than clubs. “As a footballer, you think your career is over at 35 but you’ve still got your whole life to live,” he added. “You’ve got to go and pursue a brand new career. Who on earth would want their kid going into that? You’re starting from scratch again. There needs to be something alongside football because we have a lot of free time as footballers, and it needs to be fairly early in your career. If you guys can set up a business alongside being a footballer, every single Hibs fan in the city will want to speak to you, so you have the chance to build your business alongside football, so when your career falls off, you’ve already got a successful business and it’s not that feeling of starting from scratch, or being forgotten about.

"Footballers need to get it into their head to use their career and build something for the rest of their lives. I didn’t do that myself, although I landed on my feet eventually, but the first two or three years after retiring were torture – scraping by, month-by-month. Footballers need to more switched-on about it but I think there needs to be more advice and help from other people, and organisations like Back Onside can help with that. I just wish there’d been something like that when we were playing.”

‘We come out of football and have to start from scratch’ – Jeggo

Asked if the Hibs players felt increased levels of stress as they approached the end of their contracts, Jeggo said: “It’s that unknown, isn’t it? It’s a really difficult period for a player because there’s all that pressure. You’re thinking, ‘what if I get injured?’ or ‘what if I’m not playing well?’ You could end up in a completely different situation and that makes it really tough.

“Coming to the end of your career is scary. In football you have to deal with situations that you’re maybe not mentally prepared for at such a young age. The things you have to deal with at 19 or 20 are different to other people your age. All your mates have gone to university, set themselves up, they’re 35 and have a stable life. We come out of football and, hopefully we’ve had a great career, but we’re starting from scratch again, and the profile we had disappears. You’re no longer known as ‘the footballer’, and I think that’s really difficult to deal with. There’s an acceptance of it now, but still a lot of work to be done.”