Big Interview: Tony Coton's life lessons for next generation

There are some which make you smile, some which make you laugh and some which may give you cause to cringe.

There are also others which will make you stop and think. For Coton’s tale, above all else, is one worth listening to.

The former Blues, Watford, Manchester City and Manchester United goalkeeper, who spent almost a decade on Sir Alex Ferguson’s coaching staff at Old Trafford, has recently opened up about the depression he suffered after injury and a serious health scare that left him out of the game he had been involved in since a teenager.

“I know about the demons and what I call the scourge of depression,” he says. “For 20 years you are the centre of attention and then suddenly, bang. You are out of it.

“Whatever walk of life you are in, it is tough to replace that. It is like a drug. The adrenaline, everything associated with it.”

Coton points to three occasions when he suffered from depression, the first in 1997 after his playing career was cut short by injury, the second a decade later when his coaching career ended in similar circumstances.

His lowest point arrived in 2012, while recovering from a heart attack.

“I was in a really dark place,” he says. “I didn’t want to socialise, or do anything.

“I had about a year of not enjoying anything. I didn’t want to do anything. I would just sit in a chair.

“I’ve always been a very sociable person but I wouldn’t go out for drinks with friends. I just stayed in the house. I couldn’t face anyone.”

Coton goes into even greater detail about his battle with depression and the dark thoughts which inhibited his mind in his recently-released autobiography, There To Be Shot At.

It is a powerful read but also a valuable one. There are many others, in any walk of life, who may be experiencing similar fears and do not know which way to turn.

Coton admits to being one of the lucky ones. He was strong and decided to meet his problems head-on by seeing a psychiatrist, though he didn’t tell his family at the time.

“I did not want to be the person I had become,” he says.

Others in the game are not so fortunate. Coton speaks very early in his book about the unique psychology of professional sport. The need for participants to continually convince themselves they are good enough.

When that intensity and routine goes away, problems can often occur.

Research by the world footballers’ union, FIFPro, has found 29 per cent of the profession suffer from mental health problems.

It is a figure which rises to 39 per cent once players retire, more than double the national average of 19 per cent.

“When you are not involved, Saturday goes from being the shortest day of the week to the longest,” says Coton. “The thing with mental illness is that it is invisible. You see someone on crutches with a broken ankle and it is obvious what is wrong with them. But you never know what is going on in someone’s head.

“Since the book came out and I’ve talked about what I went through, I’ve had a lot of calls from others who went through similar things.

“I genuinely think people still don’t realise just how many high-profile sportspeople suffer with mental health issues. I hope me speaking out can help in some way.”

Coton admits to having been a reluctant author until eventually being persuaded into it by his long-time friend – and eventual ghost-writer – journalist Simon Mullock.

“I didn’t want it to be a normal football book, just a succession of matches or things like that,” he said. “Of course there are details of games in there. But what I really wanted to show people was what it meant to me to become a footballer. The kind of things I went through.”

To that end, Coton has been successful. This is a long, long way from your typical football book.

Instead it is a searingly honest, warts-and-all account of his life and career, the good, the bad and the ugly.

It is also, particularly during the first half when Coton charts his playing career, a window into the game as it was before the big money rolled in.

Getting two buses to training is an alien concept to today’s emerging stars but was the reality for Coton. He does not expect many young players to read it but hopes, if they do, they might find it educational.

“They might see some of the mistakes I made, see how close I came to throwing it all away and not go down that path,” he says. “They might also get an insight into an era when things were not all laid out for you, like they are now.

“When getting to training could mean several bus rides, when you didn’t get picked up at the door every day, when lunch was not a three-course meal but instead a ham sandwich and a packet of crisps.”

So desperate was Coton to make it as a professional footballer, he once stole his dad’s car in order to get to training.

Born in Tamworth, he had already been rejected by Wolves and left Villa before being offered a trial at Blues, the club he supported as a boy.

He made his debut at the age of 19, saving a penalty just 54 seconds in with his first touch of the ball, a feat which earned him a spot in the Guinness Book of Records.

Over the next few seasons, Coton would establish himself as Blues’ No.1.

Yet having made all the necessary sacrifices and worked so hard to earn his place in the professional game, he came incredibly close to throwing it all away.

When Coton moved to Watford in £300,000 in 1986, he had twice been charged with causing actual bodily harm within the space of a year.

On trial at Tamworth Magistrates Court, prison was a real possibility until Coton received what he describes as divine intervention in the shape of Graham Taylor.

Taylor, then Watford manager, had agreed to give his new signing a character reference in court.

“When he stood up in court and started speaking, it dawned on me that I had no need to hire a barrister, I could have just had Graham,” says Coton. “I thought, I have got a chance here.”

Coton was handed a six-month sentence, suspended for two years. Outside court Taylor told him: “The man I described in that dock isn’t the man you are. But it is the man I know you can become. Don’t let me down.”

Coton didn’t. Instead he enjoyed the best six years of his career at Vicarage Road, before moving on to Manchester City, United and close to a decade as goalkeeper coach at a time when Sir Alex Ferguson’s team dominated the English game.

Now head of UK recruitment at Villa, there is a sense of his career having come full circle.

The teenage Coton walked out of Villa after falling out with a rival youth-team player over, as he reveals in one of the book’s countless amusing tales, a stolen pork chop.

Now, almost four decades on, Bodymoor Heath feels like home.

“I’m really enjoying my work,” added Coton. “We all know Villa is a massive club which has just lost its way the last few years.

“It’s going to take time but I’m confident we’ve got the right people in place to get the club back where it should be.”

There To Be Shot At, published by deCoubertin Books, is available now.