‘I couldn’t tell the truth until my dad died’
Ahead of a BBC documentary, David White tells Cara McGoogan about being abused as a young footballer
In the final moments of his father’s life, David White had one thought: “I did it.” He had managed to keep his biggest secret hidden from his father, Stewart. “I’ll never forget that moment, as he took his last breath,” says the 53-year-old. “It was the number one priority of my life to never put this on my dad.”
David is referring to the sexual abuse he experienced as a young footballer at the hands of his coach, Barry Bennell, in the 1970s. He is thought to be one of more than 800 players abused over four decades by at least 300 youth coaches.
This week, a long-awaited review into the scandal found the Football Association at fault of “significant institutional failings for which there are no excuse”. Clive Sheldon QC concluded that the FA hadn’t taken child protection seriously until 1995, and even then it was “too slow” to implement measures.
The FA apologised and Mark Bullingham, chief executive, called it a “dark day for the beautiful game”. When we speak, David is “deflated”. To him, the report suggests that the FA has nothing to apologise for before 1995. “It feels like the FA have got away with it. I can’t agree with that at all,” he says.
David describes the report, which runs to 707 pages and contains 13 recommendations, as “weak”. But what he thinks will have a greater impact is a new three-part BBC documentary, Football’s Darkest Secret, which features the troubling stories of dozens of footballers and their families, including his own.
David’s football career began in his garden with his dad, who was a Manchester City fan. They spent weekends kicking a ball about. “It became very clear I could play,” he says. “I was very fast.” Before long, he had been accepted into Whitehill FC, a feeder team for Man City, where Barry Bennell became his coach. As the training intensified, David and his dad were soon travelling together for away games. By then, his parents had split up and Stewart had shared custody.
“My dad dedicated his entire life outside of work to me playing football,” says David.
When he was 10, Bennell invited David to a training camp in Majorca. His dad dropped him at the airport. “No one questioned why two young children were out there with a 24-year-old,” says David. “It was a different time.”
A couple of nights before they were due to fly home, he woke up to find Bennell in his bed, sexually abusing him. “I had no idea what to do,” says David.
“I was in a foreign country. I didn’t have a phone. I didn’t have any money nor my passport. There was nobody around.”
“I knew there and then I could never tell my dad,” he adds. “And therefore I couldn’t tell anybody.”
The abuse continued on another two occasions, once at Bennell’s house and on a visit to Butlin’s. Still David was too scared to confide in his dad. “I had genuine fears that he would kill [Bennell],” he says. “And I feared I would lose the opportunity to play for Man City. As time went on, I thought it would destroy my dad; that he would wrongly feel guilty. I couldn’t put that on him.”
The stress, however, began to cause problems between them. “It was always on my mind and I was sensitive to criticism. Dad couldn’t work out what was going on,” David says. “What should have been a wonderful journey for a father and son became a nightmare, all down to one horrible, selfish man.”
David went on to play for Man City, Sheffield United and England, but never enjoyed it as he should have. “Looking back at videos, I’m scoring… but I was denied the upside,” he says. “I was in a negative spiral.”
Bennell has been convicted of sexual abuse against 22 boys and is currently serving a 34-year prison sentence. More than 100 victims have alleged abuse against the former coach but, like David, the majority have not had their cases heard in court. After Bennell’s first conviction, in Florida in 1994 for the rape of a British boy, David’s father asked him if the coach had ever behaved inappropriately.
“My dad was convinced Bennell was being set up,” says David. “He asked me if I’d ever seen or heard anything and I said, ‘No’.” Rather than tell his father the truth, David let Stewart send Bennell a few hundred pounds in support.
“It was easier at that point,” he says.
Like many survivors of abuse, David struggles with the fact he knew that Bennell could have been hurting others. As a professional footballer, he once saw Bennell giving two boys a tour of Man City. But he couldn’t say anything. He later wrote about it in his autobiography, Shades of Blue, and one of them got in touch to say Bennell had abused them, too.
“That’s a real tough one for me,” he says, looking down and playing with his wedding ring. In 1997, another former player, Ian Ackley, told Channel 4’s Dispatches that Bennell had raped him hundreds of times. “He needed someone to say ‘Me Too’, but I wasn’t ready to do it because of my dad,” says David. When the police questioned him, he denied that Bennell had touched him.
It was only after his father passed away that David finally told his mum what had happened. “It devastated her and she has struggled to cope with it,” he says. “I regret telling my mum. But if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be talking to you today.”
David has since worked with other survivors to make sure football clubs have safeguarding measures in place. “My recommendation to parents is, when you join a football club or gym, join for their safeguarding measures,” says David. “Not for the results or trophy events.”
At times, he admits, he has been overprotective of his own children – three in their twenties and two aged under 10, with his wife of nine years, Emma, with whom he runs a catering business – because of what Bennell did to him.
Once, his daughter phoned him at 10pm in tears when she was away with a friend’s family on the coast. David drove 11 hours from Manchester, where he still lives, through the night to take her home. “I wouldn’t take any chances,” he says.
The BBC documentary touches on the long-term impact of the abuse on survivors, some of whom have suffered from PTSD, had suicidal feelings and been admitted to psychiatric units.
David has experienced struggles in his own life and was declared bankrupt in 2015, after the failure of a business he ran with his brother. But he doesn’t want to put his difficulties down to Bennell. “I have had problems in my life,” he says, “but you can’t pin them all on what happened when I was 10.”
A wonderful journey for father and son became a nightmare, all down to one man
Football’s Darkest Secret is on BBC One on Monday at 9pm