Anselin: "You put on a mask and a smiley face when you go through the doors and you think everything will be alright. Then I would go home and cry"
Monday 18 May 2020 16:35, UK
Monday is the start of Mental Health Awareness Week. Cedric Anselin, formerly of Norwich and Bordeaux, talks about his mental health journey, from playing with Zinedine Zidane to battling depression, and his subsequent road to recovery.
A man in a quiet Norfolk town allowed himself time to pause for reflection last Friday night, 24 years since the day he became one of the youngest players to appear in a UEFA Cup final - for Bordeaux, alongside Zinedine Zidane, Christophe Dugarry and Bixente Lizarazu.
Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Awareness Week runs from May 18-24 2020. Find out more here.
If you are affected by issues related to mental wellbeing or want to talk, please contact the Samaritans on the free helpline 116 123, or visit the website.
Cedric Anselin was just 18, standing shoulder to shoulder on the turf at the now largely disused Olympiastadion in Munich with some of the names that would lift the World Cup for France two years later and embody the progressive, multicultural nation he grew up in.
Back in 1996, the UEFA Cup final was played over two legs. Bordeaux lost 2-0 away against a wily Bayern Munich side, seven of whom won Euro '96 in England six weeks later with Germany - among them Jurgen Klinsmann, Lothar Matthaus and Oliver Kahn.
Anselin came off the bench in the 90th minute in Munich - and played an hour in the return leg at Bordeaux's former home Parc Lescure on May 15, 1996. Bayern won the trophy after beating their French counterparts 5-1 on aggregate.
In spite of the defeat, this precociously talented teenage midfielder, who had risen rapidly through the Bordeaux academy, seemed to have the world at his feet in footballing terms.
What followed for Anselin, though, was a journey to the brink of destruction - via two attempts to take his own life, the theft of his €500,000 savings by a member of his family, a divorce, years living isolated in a caravan in Suffolk, alcohol dependence, a slide into bitterness, anxiety and depression - before more recently a courageous and inspiring battle back to health.
"Twenty-four years - it just flew," he laughs.
"I was still a young boy - only 18 at the time. I wasn't even a professional. It was only at the end of that year that Bordeaux offered me a 'four-plus-one-year' contract.
"We were walking around the pitch before the first leg at the Olympiastadion in Munich. We were in the dressing room and wanted to experience the atmosphere outside.
"I was on my own. I was looking around, absorbing where I was and what was going on in my life at that moment.
"Zidane, Dugarry and Richard Witschge were all together talking. They were reading the programme and I made my way towards them.
"They asked me what I was thinking. I replied: 'You don't want to know what I'm thinking.'
"Zidane says: 'Yeah, come on..'
"So I said: 'I'm thinking about tomorrow - I've got to go to college.' Remember that at the time, I was still at school.
"He couldn't believe it. He replied: 'Wow.'
"He didn't know I was still attending college. He said: 'Do you realise where we are?' I said: 'Yeah, I've just realised now!'
"I played only two minutes of the final in the first leg. In the return game, I came on for Lizarazu and played for over an hour.
"I remember when Lizarazu got injured, our coach Gernot Rohr looked over his left shoulder along the bench and said 'Cedric, can you go and do your warm-up?'
"I didn't have much time to worry. I sprinted down to the corner flag and back, and Rohr said: 'Are you ready?'
"Then as I was about to run on to the field, I remembered I didn't have my shinpads!
"We lost 5-1 on aggregate, but if you look at the first leg, we had a lot of chances and the game could easily have finished 2-2.
"Now, when I reflect years later - it was incredible and I will keep the memories in mind for the rest of my life."
From this point, there is no particular incident or even a standout moment to which Anselin can trace where it went wrong.
Yes, there were injuries and cruel luck.
There was naivety, bad advice, managerial changes that went against him - and an ill-fated spell playing in Bolivia, where he contracted malaria before deciding to return to the UK.
"When you are a footballer all you know and talk about centres around that bubble you are in. I wasn't educated enough to deal with something when it goes wrong," said Anselin.
"The phone didn't ring anymore. You think people you played with who you thought were your friends are going to ring you and help you find a club. Suddenly, you feel lonely. The family of football almost pushes you away and you feel rejected.
"I was putting myself down about it, all the time. I always believed I was a nice guy to everyone, and I wondered why nobody wanted to help me. On reflection, you realise it's part and parcel of football. It's the industry you are in. It's brutal.
"My character as a human being - as 'Cedric' - was not suitable for the industry. I realise now that I was chewed up and spat out.
"It took me a long, long time to realise that it was not my fault. It's nobody's fault - it's just the industry."
In the summer of 1996, Rohr was replaced as Bordeaux coach by Rolland Courbis.
Ahead of Anselin in his position at Bordeaux - even after the departure of the star names who helped Girondins to a first European final - were the likes of Johan Micoud, a France international who won the Bundesliga with Werder Bremen, and Ali Benarbia, who shone under Kevin Keegan at Manchester City.
The club decided a loan spell at Lille was best for his development, in order to "gain maturity and get minutes." It didn't go well.
In March 1999, he spent a week on trial at Southampton, then managed by Dave Jones. He trained with Matt Le Tissier, Mark Hughes and James Beattie. This time, it went well, and Southampton arranged a friendly to take a closer look at him.
A clerical error by the French Football Federation meant he couldn't play in the match, and by the time Jones agreed to send scouts to watch him in France, second tier Norwich had contacted Anselin's agent with a view to taking him to Carrow Road.
That's the Norfolk link.
"I said yes," he recalls.
"I knew nothing about Norwich. They weren't in the Premier League at the time. My agent sold it to me by saying that they play lots of young lads and give opportunities to players from the academy - that interested me.
"After a few days on trial, I sat down with the manager Bruce Rioch and his assistant Bryan Hamilton and they said they wanted to sign me on loan until the end of the season.
"In France, we heard stories about the drinking culture in English football - but at Norwich there wasn't much of that.
"The squad was young and they'd grown up together - Craig Bellamy, Darren Eadie, Chris Llewellyn, Darren Kenton, Adrian Forbes - they all came through the academy.
"My three-month loan was absolutely fantastic. I was playing regularly and played well. Then I signed a permanent contract and started to get injuries because of the adjustment.
"In the English Championship, you play three times a week sometimes. In France, you just play every Saturday.
"I got tendonitis in my left knee and I just couldn't shift it. When you get injured, you have to wait much longer for your time to get back into the team."
Although still only 21, Anselin's career began to wind down.
He was released by Norwich in 2001 before heading to Scotland where strangely, a trial match for Livingston earned him a short-term move to Ross County. The stint was successful, but he wasn't retained at the end of the season.
During that trial match for Livingston, he was approached by a scout with contacts in South America.
Within weeks, Anselin was turning out for Oriente Petrolero in Bolivia's Division Profesionel. Due to his malaria-inflicted woes it only lasted six months, and after returning to his then-wife in Norfolk, he was dealt a life-changing blow.
"Shortly after I came back from South America, I found out that my money and my investments were all gone," he said.
"I kept a flat in the south of France for when the football season was over and my ex-wife and I used it for holidays.
"I went to the cashpoint one day to withdraw some money, and I found that I couldn't take any out.
"I called my bank manager and she said: 'Ah, Mr Anselin, I've wanted to speak to you for a long time, I've been sending you letters.'
"The person who stole all my money used to go to my flat and check all my mail, so I had no idea what was going on.
"The case was simple. A member of my family did it. I activated a case to take that person to court. You think a lot about it - but it was a member of my family, so I thought: 'You know what? I'm going to move on.' I know it's money, and it's hard.
"I didn't forgive and I decided to break the bridge down and never talk to that person again. I had invested my money purely for after my football career. It was for the kids and my future.
"Ask my ex-wife and she will tell you I am very careful about everything I do. I didn't waste my money. I made good decisions and I had everything taken from me. I felt betrayed.
"After that, I soon became detached from the football world. I didn't know which way to turn because I didn't trust anyone anymore.
"I began to step away from people. I stayed at home. That's where the depression started to kick in."
From the highs of playing with and against the elite of the global game, the former France U21 international's descent into a spiral of destruction was well underway.
Anselin had laid roots in Norfolk from his time at Norwich and had married Lynsey, who had grown up in the area.
He had a job at a sports shop, part-owned by former Norwich and England defender Danny Mills. But it wasn't football, and the Parisian was no longer living his dream.
He moved with Lynsey to a caravan in Colton, a seaside village a few miles south of Great Yarmouth, over the county border into Suffolk - and stayed there for several years.
As well as wanting to live as a virtual recluse, his drinking was a problem, as was his weight. The younger version of himself had once chosen to uproot from his "comfort zone" in Bordeaux and head for the less salubrious setting of Lille.
He'd tried his luck in South America, England and nearly joined DC United of the MLS - so why had his once-healthy appetite for adventure now given way to a desire to hide himself away?
"It was the illness," said Anselin.
"I grew very bitter. I couldn't face anyone's happiness, I couldn't face anyone I'd played with doing so well.
"I was thinking 'why has he got this, why has he got that? Why has this happened to him?'
"It was a battle for 15 years. You start to act and you become very good at it. You wear a mask when you are out and you worry that people will find out something isn't right with you.
"I didn't speak to my wife at the time because I felt ashamed. After a while, I looked at myself through her eyes and felt I couldn't be a husband, you can't provide for your family.
"It hit me hard when we had a first child. I thought that if we started a family, maybe things will start to go well - but it actually got worse because I couldn't act as a father.
"I didn't want to be here any more and that's why I tried to take my life for the first time in 2012. It was my ex-wife who saved me and I started to give a glimpse of what was going on in my head.
"Again, I didn't know who to turn to. I was ashamed of what I had become compared to where I used to be."
That sadly didn't mark a turning point for Anselin.
His marriage broke down and he is now divorced from Lynsey, although they remain friends.
He tried to take his own life once more in 2016, only for the intervention of former PFA chairman Clarke Carlisle to stop him after a phone call from Anselin on the night he planned to kill himself.
Since then, his life has steadily progressed after he was diagnosed with severe depression following a clinical assessment.
He is now a mental-health ambassador who coaches school children at a school in Norfolk.
He says he has never been happier.
As he looks back now, he sees events with clearer perspective.
"In the 1990s, you never spoke about depression. Even in my last year at Norwich, I knew I wasn't well," he said.
"I wasn't playing, I was always injured, I was always on my own. You go to the training ground and you do your own treatment.
"So many times, I was crying in the car park. I was anxious about leaving my flat and going to training.
"I was petrified that my team-mates would find out something isn't right. So you put on a mask and a smiley face when you go through the doors and you think everything will be alright. Then I would go home and cry. I didn't want to go to training.
"I was a foreign player at Norwich and because I was earning decent money there, I didn't want to be the weak link.
"I was being sick before training sessions and sick before games. I didn't want to be a failure by making a bad pass or a bad touch - I was worried someone would shout at me.
"I couldn't handle it. I wanted to be the smallest player in the dressing room and for nobody to talk to me."
Anselin, who will be 43 this summer, has lost three stone in weight after giving up alcohol, radically improving his diet and embarking on daily runs. He now manages Norwich United in the Eastern Counties Premier Division.
His youthful appearance now resembles much more the teenager who faced down his hero Roberto Baggio at the San Siro in the quarter-final during that UEFA Cup run.
"We went to the San Siro. We lost 2-0 in the first leg - and I was a young kid," Anselin recalls.
"I remember afterwards trying to zig-zag between the media and all the journalists to find my way back to the bus.
"I arrived at the level of the Milan changing room. As I was passing, Baggio stepped out and he looked at me.
"The guy was an international footballer for Italy. He played a World Cup final in 1994, missed a penalty in the final against Brazil - and he's standing just next to me when I had his poster on my wall!
"Incredible. Those are things I will never ever, forget."
Anselin isn't taking his recent progress for granted.
He does his best to reach out to people who feel they need his help, even if he often doesn't know who they are.
"As long as they have someone they can rely on at the end of the phone line - that, for me, is a plus," he explains.
"I always try to reply quickly because you don't know where a person is in their mind, and the dark places they might be. If I didn't reply, I would feel guilty if something happened to them.
"I played football and maybe people listen to me more than they may listen to a normal person. So this is me trying to use my voice in a positive way - to remove the stigma from depression."
Anselin tries to use social media positively by updating his platforms with a daily message of hope.
He has recently spoken to some of his former team-mates at Bordeaux, where he is still warmly appreciated. His former club contacted him in 2016 after learning of his illness.
Anselin does, though, believe today's players are suffering silently during lockdown, and the enforced period of isolation.
"The programme they will be following at home is only physical. It's not even touching the ball," he said.
"It's all about fitness, so it's difficult because when you're training it's you against the treadmill - not against your team-mates on the grass.
"Even if players connect over Zoom and other apps, it's not the same. You can't have a cuddle, a laugh, a bit of banter or a bit of lunch with them. A lot of players are struggling massively at the minute.
"The players will be missing even the smell of the dressing room. It's a smell you get used to - it's like adrenaline.
"This is going to have a massive impact on our mental health afterwards. There will be an increase in depression. People in normal life who have never faced it, will have problems."
Hosted by the Mental Health Foundation, Mental Health Awareness Week runs from May 18-24 2020. Find out more here.
If you are affected by issues related to mental wellbeing or want to talk, please contact the Samaritans on the free helpline 116 123, or visit the website.
