We sit in a park near Kings Cross, next to a church and a graveyard, and Marvin Sordell takes a deep breath. He feels ready, but this is not easy. Sordell is a former Premier League footballer, who now plays for Burton Albion in League One, and he is a writer. This dual identity shapes him. Professional football has scarred Sordell; and the secret world of writing has helped him.

A sunlit September afternoon leaves dappled little shadows around our feet as his words flow. Everything else falls away beneath this gripping, distressing and ultimately uplifting story. Sordell suffered from depression for years, even when being bought and sold for millions of pounds, playing for England Under-21s and representing GB at the London Olympics, and he endured misconceptions and racism. At his lowest he attempted suicide; but he has found a way to live again.

Steve Sidwell: ‘I wanted the tears to happen. Then I was done as a player’ Read more

The 27-year-old has been hurt by the harsh business of football but he still loves the game. He also loves to write, both poetry and prose, and has completed his first book, Vulnerable Exposure, which he has yet to submit to a publisher. He begins by talking about his poem, Denis Prose, an anagram for depression.

“That was one of my first poems,” he says. “I wanted to make depression real so people can understand how you are fighting for control over yourself. Depression consumes you and sometimes you submit to it. Lots of emotions snowballed and became one big thing inside me. It felt like I was overtaken by another entity. It was then that I wrote Denis Prose.

“The poem follows my journey from the training ground to my home. I wanted to personify the emotion while the car represents my body. Inside the car we have myself and a passenger, Denis Prose, representing two sides of my consciousness. The journey starts on as a sunny day but it becomes dark and rainy. There is a shift in emotion and a struggle for power. Denis Prose takes charge. The poem ends in suicide because depression is so powerful it tells you: ‘This is the way out. I’ll take control and everything will be over.’”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marvin Sordell in action for Burton Albion against Sunderland in April 2018. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images

Sordell spoke to people at one of his former clubs about his tangled emotions. “I said I’m missing my friends and family. But I told them I still wanted to be there because playing football was all I wanted to do. The moment you go onto the pitch the depression disappears. But the problems were getting worse because I wasn’t being picked. I had no release.”

The striker stresses that every manager should select the players he believes are best equipped to help his team win. But he makes a telling point about how clubs fail to help players who feel jettisoned. “That led me to me being more downtrodden, more disappointed. I’ve always been hard on myself and I’m not generally confident. As I’ve grown older I’ve got better – but when I was younger, without a support network, it felt cold and lonely. I felt stuck.”

Sordell pauses before speaking even more openly. “I have to say this because it’s important. Without naming names, at one of my clubs I was also seeing a doctor. She recommended I go to the Priory to recover properly. I said, ‘I don’t think you realise what I do for a living. It’s not possible to leave a football club for a few weeks. They paid good money to sign me. They pay me good money, so I can’t just go. But I’ll ask them.’

“I didn’t end up doing so. I wasn’t sure how they would react to me needing to go to the Priory and then, not long after, my mum phoned. She said someone from the club had called. They told her I was thinking of going to the Priory but the message was clear. ‘You can’t do that. You must focus on football.’ I don’t know how they knew. I was shocked.

It felt like layers and layers were coming away until I was left with a real open version of myself

“I was learning to play the piano and cook creatively. I was spending my free time being expressive. I would post interesting images on Instagram. It seemed better than going to bars every day. And he said to my mum I must stop playing the piano, stop cooking and focus on football. I thought: ‘Playing the piano is productive. I have to cook to eat. How can this be bad for my football?’ But that was their mentality towards me. People saw an attitude problem because I didn’t banter with the players and coaches. When I got home I often sat in the dark.

“It’s difficult in this industry to be honest without it coming back to bite you. Once I was told I was going on loan regardless of what I wanted. I was told to take a pay cut, and if I stayed the circumstances would be a lot worse than if I left. I didn’t speak to the manager – he spoke to my agent. I tried to see the positives because it’s a fresh start, an opportunity to play football.”

Sordell’s depression became so acute he tried to kill himself in August 2013. “On one occasion,” he says softly, “I tried to overdose on tablets. I took all these tablets and went to sleep. It didn’t work, thankfully. When I woke up I was shocked, annoyed. Some people would say, in that situation, they feel born again. I just thought: ‘What now?’

“I was so drained. People think I should be fine. I’d played at the Olympics and the European Under-21 Championship. Played in the Premier League. On good money. But it didn’t feel like that. I went to training the day after. I didn’t tell anyone. The first time anybody really understood was when I sent my book to my friends, my mum, my sister and my wife. The only person who knew I was struggling was my wife. But when she read the book she said: ‘I didn’t know it was that bad.’

“Until I started writing I struggled to express my emotions. So my wife said: ‘That’s enough. You need to see this [psychiatrist].’ I went to see her and broke down. Even I didn’t understand it until then. I’d thought: ‘I’m just annoyed because I’m not playing. It’s nothing.’ But it felt like layers and layers were coming away until I was left with a real open version of myself.”

Medication had helped initially because, as Sordell says, “I was at breaking point. But I reached a stage where I stopped taking it. I felt so numb on medication.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marvin Sordell shoots during the London 2012 Olympic Games match between Great Britain and the United Arab Emirates at Wembley. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

Writing became a different form of medicine for Sordell. “I felt dead inside for a long time – and writing gave me a way to get emotions out. I have no idea where I would’ve gone, where I would’ve spiralled to, if not for writing. I probably wouldn’t be playing football. I’d heard too many people saying, ‘He’s too difficult or miserable.’ It’s different now. Finishing the book became a way to own my story. It felt liberating.

“I said to my friend: ‘I don’t know how people are going to take it, a footballer writing poetry. It’s weird.’ He said: ‘You’ll never know until you find out.’ So on [2017’s] World Mental Health day I tweeted the Denis Prose poem and people opened up to me. I was taken aback but people identified with it. They were also struggling. It felt so powerful.”

Sordell has also overcome the racism he experienced for Bolton against Millwall in October 2012 and later that same month while representing England Under-21s against Serbia in Belgrade. “Everyone knows what Millwall was like so I was shocked to discover I was the first person to report racism at Millwall. Most footballers know about that section at Millwall. If you are on the bench and warming up, you’re getting abuse – whether you are black or white. The club have moved that section now. I played there again at the end of last season and I scored. They boo me, they call me names and I just smile.”

He describes the notorious match in Belgrade as “surreal. I remember hearing this noise and thinking: ‘What on earth is that?’ I passed the ball and it went out for a throw-in. Danny Rose took it and the whole stadium was making monkey chants. I thought something would happen because it was on live TV. But two of our players, Steven Caulker and Tom Ince, got banned for a game for being sent off while the Serbian FA was fined a pittance. Nothing was done.”

I write about how I feel. Sometimes it’s just two lines or sometimes it’s a long rant. It helps.

Sordell shrugs. He remembers “my first experience of playing football was in a Sunday league team. I was very young and and the manager said to my mum: ‘We’re not picking your son because he’s shit.’ That’s brutal. The manager’s son was the goalkeeper, and I was playing in goal. Maybe that had something to do with it. I ended up in the B team. We got to the final of the tournament and the A team got knocked out. But I was upset. My uncle took me to the aquarium to cheer me up.

“Football’s as ruthless now as it was then. The rewards are high, but so are the risks. A lot of people may not understand because they see the money top players make. But it’s harsh and every move is a risk. I found it difficult when I was younger because you can’t easily be yourself in football. We have no freedom of identity. I’ve always been Marvin Sordell, the footballer. Your whole life is contained and dictated by football. It’s not healthy.”

Sordell seems mentally healthy today and, as he says, “I’m writing a presentation to take to the FA and PFA. It’s about mental health in football. Thirty years ago when someone had a physical injury they were often told to man up. Now they say: ‘If anything’s wrong with you, go to the physio. No risks.’ But with mental health it’s still a case of ‘Man up’ most of the time. Eventually, we’ll change that attitude.”

Does Sordell still struggle with depression? “There are moments that trigger it. But I understand how to manage it emotionally. I write about how I feel. Sometimes it’s just two lines or sometimes it’s a long rant. It helps. And I’m getting better talking about it. So I’m getting there. I’m also definitely enjoying football. I’ve played 200 games as a pro and I never thought I’d play one. So everything is positive.”

Joey Barton: ‘I’ve been through many scrapes … my chaotic career will help me as a manager’ | Donald McRae Read more

Sordell takes out his laptop and shows me the short film he and his friend, Maxwell Harris-Tharp have made about the haunting presence of Denis Prose. His voice, reading his poem, resounds as we watch the hooded figures of himself and a friend on the screen. Sordell looks at the park’s adjoining graveyard and smiles at the strangeness of our ending up here by chance. I ask to see the film again.

We watch the ghosts of his past retreat still further. Afterwards, I ask Sordell about his hopes for the future. “The biggest thing for me now would be to speak to someone about my book. I’d like to get to that point where, rather than just being ‘Marvin Sordell, Footballer’, you see ‘Marvin Sordell, Writer.’ That would be beyond any accolades. It would mean I’ve gained a real freedom of identity. I’m a footballer when I play football – but I’m also a writer. I’m a person with more than one identity. When you put them together you have the real me.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Creative Directors: Marvin Sordell, Will Miller & Maxwell Harris-Tharp. Filmed by Maxwell Harris-Tharp

Creative Directors: Marvin Sordell, Will Miller & Maxwell Harris-Tharp. Filmed by Maxwell Harris-Tharp

In the UK the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. PFA members can contact the confidential wellbeing helpline on 07500 000777