The perils of Goldenfalls
HESKEY’S TROLL SUICIDE WARNING
DAVID BECKHAM did not have to deal with cruel social media trolls when he became Public Enemy No.1 in the aftermath of his 1998 World Cup hell.
But in a new book about the ex- England captain, Beckham’s former England team-mate Emile Heskey has warned that lessons can still be learned from the treatment meted out to the midfielder in the aftermath of his red card (above) against Argentina.
Heskey fears for the mental wellbeing of any player deemed by the Twitter and Facebook masses to have let their country down.
And at the end of a week when Phil Foden and Mason Greenwood were dismissed from England duty after breaking coronavirus protocols, his words could not have come at a more salient time.
Heskey, 42, believes Beckham would have come under the kind of mental stresses that saw TV presenter Caroline Flack commit suicide in February had he been subjected to the same social media onslaught. Heskey, himself a target for trolls during his career, said: “I didn’t get anything like what David got. It was still over the top, but you almost have to come to expect that it’s part of playing for England.
“People think they can say and do whatever they want.
“And because footballers by and large don’t respond to it, they think they can carry on.
“They think there’s no impact. But there is. Look at what happened to Caroline Flack. And no one cares.
Vicious
“Don’t get me wrong, the attention you get online is largely positive. But that which isn’t positive can be vicious.
“And that can affect people in ways you can’t imagine. Everybody i s different, people r eact differently.
“What if David had been more vulnerable in 1998? What if social media had been around in 1998 and went in on him?
“It is dreadful to say, but it is not impossible to envisage a repeat scenario due to the way the media is, and then who knows what might happen? People are suffering from mental health issues – and football players are people.”
Beckham recently looked back on his “toughest year” when he spoke to Prince William about mental health issues as part of a drive to increase awareness in sport.
“I made a mistake in ’98,” he said. “The reaction was pretty brutal.”
Beckham was taking his first steps towards becoming the nation’s Golden Boy when Heskey won the first of his 62 England caps in November 1998.
But in Beckham: The Making of a Megastar, the former striker l amented how t he current generation continue to suffer.
Heskey said: “People who have the spotlight of the media are expected to behave differently to the standards expected of other people. But people behave differently to you.
“They hurl abuse in the street in the way they wouldn’t to anyone else because you’re a footballer.”
‘Beckham: The Making of a Megastar’ by Wayne Barton is published by Pitch Publishing on September 14.