In this week's episode of the Mental Well-Balling Podcast, I speak to someone who has struggled with mental health problems through his footballing career, and now continues to fight against them as he rebuilds a new identity in a life after football.
It's former Charlton Athletic and Northern Ireland youth international Mikhail Kennedy. Mikhail was forced to retire at the start of 2020 after a series of serious injuries cut short his career at the age of just 23. As I explain in the podcast, Mikhail is someone I deeply admire for his bravery, his openness, his strength, and his passion for the subject matter.
We talk about the battles he’s faced from loneliness when first moving to England, giving up on taking his GCSEs to do so, dealing with injury setbacks, the one conversation that changed his life, being able to open up and understand himself and his teammates better, the need to challenge football’s stereotypes, and the identity-rebuilding journey he’s been on over the past year since being forced to retire.
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