I went to my little girl’s first birthday party, and she didn’t know who I was. I got out of there and starte

Heartfelt interview with Craig Bellamy on the battle for his mental health

IN August last year, Craig Bellamy came home to Cardiff from Belgium. It was only a brief visit. That was all it could be. That was all it ever was in those days because of Covid. By then, the separation was starting to gnaw at him and wear him down. This was a special occasion, too. It was his youngest child’s birthday. Orla was one year old.

Bellamy knew he had to be gone the next day. Back to Anderlecht, back to a football environment that was everything he wanted, coaching the club’s Under-21 side, working closely with manager Vincent Kompany, immersing himself in the game for 14 hours a day, educating himself, spending hours on the training pitch with the former Manchester City captain, plotting and planning.

Bellamy loved everything about working at the club but he also knew himself well enough to realise that the dislocation from his family was starting to tear him apart. He had dealt before with what Kompany was later to call the ‘monster of depression’. He knew the signs of its approach.

He had shut himself down emotionally before for football, at a cost, and now he was trying to do it again and it was destroying him again. He had been open about mental health issues in the past and now he could feel them assailing him once more.

‘I came back in August after pre-season with Anderlecht,’ says the former Newcastle, Liverpool, Celtic and Manchester City star, ‘it was my daughter’s first birthday and there was a party for her and she didn’t know who I was. I held out my arms and she wouldn’t come to me. Why would she? She had only seen me on eight or nine occasions and even then I was only around for 24 hours at a time. I wasn’t really a part of Orla’s life.

‘Family members were all around, celebrating her birthday. If I went anywhere near her, she didn’t want to know. But she was going to her cousins and people like that. Which is fine, honestly. I didn’t even want to go up to her because it looked embarrassing. I got out of there and I started crying. What do I do? Do I walk away here and don’t come back? Do I go to football and leave someone I love? Do I stay in her life?’

Bellamy had accepted Kompany’s offer of a job at Anderlecht in the summer of 2019 and had thrown himself into the role. He lived in an apartment in the centre of Brussels and thrived alongside his former City teammate as they began the process of rebuilding Belgium’s most famous club side by using their youth system to resuscitate them.

‘I had always wanted to work abroad,’ says Bellamy, 42. ‘The club’s motto is ‘In Youth We Trust’. I absolutely loved it.’ Then things changed. Just as they did for so many people. Bellamy is at pains to point that out as he tells his story. He had it no worse than anyone else. People lost loved ones and could not go to their funerals, could not even go to the hospital to say goodbye. He came home for the Christmas of 2020. ‘I could feel my anxiety levels starting to rise then,’ he says. ‘Part of me thought, “Why have we brought this girl into this world, we have brought her into such uncertainty”. I could feel myself becoming more anti-social.’

He began to feel more and more isolated in Brussels.

The visits from friends and family dried up because of Covid restrictions. He missed his sons, Ellis, 24, and Cameron, 20, but at least they were selfsufficient. But he was eaten up with guilt about not being able to be part of the lives of Orla and his teenage daughter, Lexi.

HE had been here before. When he left to join Norwich as a 15-year-old, he was desperately homesick. Some years ago, he told me how he used to call his parents in Cardiff from a phone box in Norwich and, after the call, stay there weeping.

‘It was heartbreaking,’ he says. ‘I started to feel the loneliness I had felt when I was a kid. Your stomach turns, you get the anxiety of not being able to breathe properly. And sorrow. Family is first. It’s the most important thing. I tell my players that all the time. If any of the players ever come to me and say there is a wedding or whatever, I tell them to go and do it. Football will come and go for you. You cannot miss those moments. I won’t allow it. ‘Unfortunately at times, I haven’t lived it myself. Not by design. ‘I was crying myself to sleep every night as well as trying to be a footballer. I didn’t want to be a footballer because I didn’t want to be in this much pain. But then I worked out that this was my career, how I could make a living. But how do I get through this? So I had to shut off emotion. And unfortunately that comes back.

‘I wish I could be less emotional and more ruthless but I am not built that way. I have to deal with that and face up to it. If I am going to bring someone into this world, I have to make sure she knows her dad loves her and that I’m here for her.’

Bellamy was haunted by the idea of letting Kompany down by leaving. Professionally, he was proving himself but, by last month, he knew it was time to go. He arrived back in Cardiff a month ago. While we are sitting in a cafe, Ellis comes over to say hello. Bellamy is picking his elder daughter up from school later on. He collects her every day now. He is having counselling again and enjoying its benefits.

He says: ‘I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s even been good for my coaching. People are much more open about mental health. One in four people suffer with it through their lives. This is not a taboo any more. That belief has to go. This is normal. This is not a weakness. This is a huge part of a lot of people’s lives.’

So what now? ‘I need to take a break,’ he says. ‘I need to spend time around people I haven’t spent time around. I tell players to put family first and I have to lead by example. ’

Now, it’s a transition period. I see Orla twice a week, which isn’t enough but everyone has to adapt. In a lot of ways, I feel like the luckiest man alive.

‘And there’s another thing: when I reach out my arms now, Orla comes to me.’