Former Arsenal star speaks about addiction battle on visit to St. Cecilia's College

‘I was out shopping one day with my wife, and she spotted these pair of shoes. So I told her to buy them. She said she didn’t want to because they cost £100. What she didn’t know was that I’d just bet £10,000 on a horse.’

Paul Merson spoke with honesty and bravery before a large turnout at St Cecilia’s College on Monday night, as he gave an insight into the demons that hung like a dark cloud over his glittering 22 year career as a footballer.

The former Arsenal and England midfielder turned TV pundit was the special guest at an event held by the Old Library Trust and The Bogside and Brandywell Health Forum as part of their Communities in Transition project. The project continues to be a shining light that provides counselling and special care to anyone afflicted with mental health problems and addiction.

Merson spoke openly about his difficulties with gambling, drugs and alcohol, afflictions that began to surface when he was only sixteen years old.

‘When I first started with Arsenal they gave me £100 a month, and the first time I got it I went with a mate into William Hill, and I lost the whole lot in fifteen minutes, and that’s when things started to go wrong.’

His message was clear. The first step in fixing a problem is recognising that there is one, and he urged anyone who is currently in despair to come forward and seek help.

‘People who are out there struggling, they’re not a bad person, they have an illness. They’re not letting themselves down, they’re ill. They need to get well, and they need to talk. They’re not alone. There are a lot of people out there in recovery and trying to get well. If what I share with people can help even just one person get better, then that for me would be an unbelievable success. That’s the main thing for me.’

An attacking midfielder who got supporters off their seats, he won two league titles, an FA Cup, League Cup, European Cup winners cup, and represented his country 21 times, scoring 127 goals along the way.

His most difficult challenges came off the pitch.

‘I was playing for Arsenal, and we were the top team in England at the time. We’d won five trophies in four years, so we were the main team. I’m playing for England, earning good money in the best job in the world, and I wanted to kill myself. How do I tell people that? How do I tell someone fighting to put food on the table that I’m struggling. But it isn’t the money, it’s the illness. That’s what the addiction was telling me- how dare you come out with something like that? But at the end of the day this is an illness that can take anybody, whether it be the richest man in the world or the poorest. It doesn’t discriminate.’

Merson said that he was really pleased to see the change in attitude towards mental health in recent years, something that has improved since his time as a player, but spoke of his dismay at the recent treatment of Brentford striker Ivan Toney, insisting that authorities can do better for those who are in peril.

‘We still need to do more. It’s alright to talk the talk, but we need to walk the walk. Ivan Toney gets banned for eight months, so how is anyone supposed to come out and talk now? If I came out nowadays about a gambling problem, they would take one of the things I love most away from me, and that’s playing football. I don’t think it was clever what they did. If he was on drugs, they would have put him in a rehab centre, drug tested him every day, and he’d have carried on playing football. We have to get rid of the stigma.’

With the help of his family, AA meetings and Gamblers Anonymous sessions, Merson has now been in recovery since January 2019, and insists he’s now in the happiest period of his life.

‘I played until I was  37 and what you miss when you finish is the laughing and joking in the dressing room. Being around teammates and having a laugh after training. When you’re playing you know when you’re finished, when you have to retire. I was fortunate because I got a job with Sky straight away and I’m still able to have a laugh with Jeff and the boys on a Saturday. I couldn’t speak highly enough of Jeff- I’ll miss him dearly.’