Originally Posted by
saloonscum
Part 2...
Six months later, Aberdeen paid up Tansey’s contract in full, despite only being midway through a three-year deal. The same day he was released, in January 2019, St Mirren signed him on an 18-month deal.
In his desperation to keep his career alive, Tansey’s reliance on painkillers became an increasingly central part of his life and he took more without telling the club.
“I was on strong anti-inflams — diclofenac,” says Tansey.
“I took additional painkillers without telling them, because it wasn’t touching the pain.
“I knew it was getting to a stage where they couldn’t do any more so it was out of desperation that I started taking additional pain killers.
“It was just getting on top of me,” he says. “You’re living on your own most of the time. That’s where the depression really kicked in. It was a whole spiral of bad things going on.”
Tansey was able to get himself fit enough to make the starting XI for six of his new club’s first eight fixtures after signing.
“I felt probably 75 per cent fit, which was brilliant — it was probably the best I’ve felt on a pitch for years.”
Any momentum was suddenly curtailed, however, when he was booked for a challenge on Hearts defender Clevid Dikamona in a 1-1 draw at Tynecastle on February 23. Dikamona tweeted an image of the tackle and Tansey later received a two-game retrospective ban.
“A year before, I’d probably have nicked it and I’d have been away,” says Tansey, “but I was a mile off it. You feel like you’re sort of running in someone else’s body in that split second.”
Tansey decided he would keep up his match sharpness by playing in a reserve game. It would end up being the last time he stepped onto a pitch as a professional.
By the March, it was discovered he had osteomyelitis — a pelvic bone infection. The doctor who assessed him for his pension stated that this “will have occurred due to the numerous operations he had at the time”.
“I could just tell I’d put it through too much,” says Tansey. “It was past the point of no return. I got to the stage that, when I was lying down, I couldn’t lift my right leg in the air.
“That’s when the physio said to me, ‘I think you need to stop’.”
Less than two years after his original injury at Aberdeen, aged 30, his playing career was over.
“I was in tears,” Tansey says. “I remember (team-mate) Anton Ferdinand came in and sort of just put his arms around me. Everyone was just quiet — in bits for me. It’s not nice, but I respected the fact that they cared.”
Tansey was released by St Mirren that summer and decided to move back into his parents’ home in Liverpool. He would see yet another specialist, where it was determined he needed more surgery — this time costing him around £5,000 out of his own pocket.
Since his original operation at Aberdeen two years before, he had been taking ibuprofen, co-codamol and diclofenac. After the fourth surgery, he added tramadol, an even more powerful painkiller.
“I was doing nothing, which is the worst thing you can do,” he says. “Waking up at half 11, 12 o’clock, walking the dog, coming back in, sitting watching telly. My head was up my arse. I was just angry and arguing with everyone.”
His reliance on painkillers soon developed into an addiction, which he managed to hide from his family.
He signed with local seventh-tier club Warrington Town but only a few weeks later, sitting on the substitutes’ bench at Scarborough Athletic, he accepted his was time up.
“I didn’t want to be that player: ‘****ing hell, have you seen him now?’. I wasn’t going out like that. ‘He used to play, you know?’. No, no, no. I couldn’t stand it.”
The finality hit him hard.
“If I was pissed off, I’d go and get two (painkillers) and then I’d feel better. It became like an instant release. The max it got to was when I took 10 in one day.
“That’s when I knew it was a problem.
“I passed out. My mum said it was like a seizure. I just remember having a headache at the back of my head and going to rub it, then the next minute I was out. That scared the **** out of me.
“I got taken to hospital by ambulance. That’s where I thought, ‘Right, this is going to get the better of me here and there’s only one way I’m going if I carry on’.”
He was told it was stress-related, exacerbated by the amount of painkillers he had been taking. It was then that Tansey opened up to his family, and a doctor diagnosed him with depression.
“The thing is, as men, you act like you’re strong,” he says. “You put this persona on when you go out. But sometimes you’re braver to say what really is going through your head and what’s happening. It’s not a sign of weakness.
“I thought I was invincible. I would think, ‘Oh, I’ll just take two tomorrow, take two again, it’s fine’. It was a big wake-up call.”
Tansey has weaned himself off anti-depressants, bought a house with his girlfriend, close to his parents in St Helens, and football has been replaced with a job in car finance. Despite not having kicked a ball since May 2020, when he completed a UEFA B coaching course, he has found motivation again. It helps “having a purpose”, he says.
“It’s mad but I’m probably more mentally strong now after this,” says Tansey.
“But ideally, I should still be playing. The competitive person in me still thinks about it now.”
Reply With Quote
Hall Of Fame
Lead-swinging tosser.
