Former striker Dave Kitson has revealed himself as ‘The Secret Footballer’, stating his nameless exposes into the fashionable sport “stopped being enjoyable” after the demise of .
Kitson, who penned 5 books and a weekly newspaper column in the course of the 2010s underneath the pseudonym, provided candid insights into the ‘s inside workings and his frustrations.
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His true id grew to become a widespread on-line guessing sport, with followers meticulously dissecting clues.
In a YouTube interview, Kitson, who performed for , , Cambridge, Sheffield United and Portsmouth throughout his profession, admitted: “I’m The Secret Footballer. I’ve by no means stated that out loud earlier than. It was an concept that got here to me once I wasn’t proud of the place soccer was going and I wanted an outlet to precise it for my very own psychological well being.”
He added that writing, a lifelong ardour, was “cathartic” and helped him “course of what was occurring in soccer.”
Initially, the venture aimed to “clarify what occurs within the trade and why,” quite than “naming names.”
Kitson performed within the Premier League for Studying (Getty Pictures)
Nevertheless, sustaining anonymity whereas having a high-profile profession introduced immense private strain.
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Kitson confessed: “It was enjoyable for some time, then it bred enormous anxiousness. I had a profession and a giant contract. If I’d been outed, I might have been sacked and ostracised.”
Regardless of the stress, he believes his work “modified soccer on this nation and led to overhauls on the highest ranges, which I’m pleased with.”
The emotional toll peaked with a column on psychological well being titled ‘Generally There’s Darkness Behind the Mild’.
Kitson recounted: “No person talked about psychological well being in soccer then. Should you spoke about it, you had been seen as weak. I stated there was a psychological well being epidemic and I predicted it was solely a matter of time earlier than somebody took their very own life.”
The article was submitted on a Friday and revealed on Saturday. The very subsequent day, Sunday, was discovered lifeless.
“That’s when the Secret Footballer stopped being enjoyable,” Kitson concluded.