Steve Cotterill vs COVID
Shrewsbury’s manager recalls his frightening dice with death
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y the time I was 38, I’d lost all of my family. My dad died when I was 11, at which point my grandfather became like my father. I lost him when I was 26. My mother passed away 18 years ago, making my grandmother the last to go three months later. She died of a broken heart – people don’t often see their daughters go before them. I saw two of the four on their deathbeds, so I understand a little more about what dying is about.
Or at least I thought I did. Until you experience getting what might have been close to death yourself, you can never know what it’s like. I knew I was ill with coronavirus, but it was only when I was back home and recovering months after that I truly understood what happened. When I returned to hospital, my specialist told me, ‘ I don’t think you realise how bad you were’. I asked her to spell it out. ‘ Death,’ she said.I’ve always tried to look after myself as much as I could, and I’d say that I was pretty fit for a 57- year- old. I exercise regularly and go to the gym, try to eat the right things, and alcohol has never been a big part of my life. If I’m in the right company I’ll enjoy an occasional beer or glass of wine, but I’d never walk into a pub unless I’ve gone out for a meal or something.
Before catching coronavirus, I hardly ever even got coughs or colds. I’ve been incredibly lucky in that sense, although I think you could say the bad time I’ve had has balanced that out.
I’d been out of work when the pandemic first hit, but was still going to watch matches when I could. It was tougher trying to do that, as you could only go to places where you knew the clubs or people there, and you needed to be tested before getting access to the ground. But then I got the manager’s job at Shrewsbury in November 2020.
When I arrived, I had absolutely no fear of catching coronavirus – no fear whatsoever. If you’d have said to me, ‘ I’ll bet you £ 10,000 that you’re going to catch COVID’, I’d have said, ‘ I’ll tell you what, let’s make it £ 100,000’. I’ve never been someone who regularly has something wrong with them.
I was very careful, too – I’m the kind of bloke who’s sceptical about public toilets and uses a tissue or my sleeve to make sure I don’t touch the door handle on the way out. It had become a running joke around here actually – while the government advice had been to wash your hands for 20 seconds, the lads were saying I used to wash my hands every 20 seconds instead. That’s how careful I was being, and I was predominantly like that anyway.
I’m fairly sure I picked up COVID in that first month when nobody was being tested in the Football League, which was crazy. Lower down the pyramid, players weren’t getting tested unless they had symptoms – looking back it’s amazing, really. We had a couple of lads who tested positive, then I did as well, and in total we had about 17 or 18 people who went down with it.
How long were they playing with those symptoms? How long were they playing while positive? I thought it was a bit of a joke, to be honest – a joke decision to let the season continue without more precautions being taken. If they’re testing everyone, then fine: carry on the season. Were we saying that the lads in the lower leagues weren’t valued as much as the ones higher up? We understand that in terms of football monetary terms, but what about the human side of it?
When I got to Shrewsbury, I thought there was a lot to do. There was possibly something like 18 hours of work a day, of thinking about the football club, so my energy levels were dipping. But you keep getting yourself back up for it because you know you’ve got games. You start up here, then your energy levels drop, then you go back up for a game and might not quite reach the level you were at previously. Before you know where you’re at, you’ve got half a tank of diesel.
I first started feeling the impact of COVID during a training session one Friday, ahead of a game against Crewe which had been called off. I just remember feeling extremely tired, then I endured the night from hell – my bedsheets in the hotel I was staying at were drenched in the early hours, so the following day I got tested and it came back positive. I began to feel particularly rough after about four or five days, then it became even worse as time went on.
After isolating at the hotel for 10 days, I went home and didn’t get better. I was being more or less force- fed and was force- drinking, while the coughing was just unbelievable. I was coughing to the point where
I thought I was going to pass out. My old doctor at Bristol City came round the house to see me and said, ‘ You’re probably going to end up in hospital. See how you are tonight and we’ll check your blood stats tomorrow’. My blood oxygen was down the next day, so I was going in.
Normally a person is living off 20 per cent oxygen, but when I got to hospital I needed 91 per cent. When that flashed up, I knew I was in a bad way. I stayed in a holding room for a while before I went up to the ward, where I had a PICC line inserted in my arm. It was like having a mini operation in your room. They put the line in to take blood from me every day, and I was also on a drip to hydrate me. I was on that for three weeks, because I was so dehydrated and they couldn’t find any veins. My arms were badly bruised, as you can only inject them so many times before the veins start to go away for a while – they need to rehabilitate. I looked like an apple in an orchard that had been on the floor for about a month.
They later put a PICC line directly to my heart, which was worrying. I thought, ‘ Why do you want to get there?’ But during the procedure one of my lungs got punctured, which meant that when I was taking oxygen down into my lungs, it was leaking back out. Imagine putting a pinprick in the top of a balloon neck – every time you blow into the balloon, it’s going to leak back out. So of course, my lungs were never reaching proper inflation size and the capacity couldn’t get any bigger.
What happens is that the air doesn’t come back out of your nose and mouth – it stays in your body, so I had all this air in my chest and neck. My neck was really swollen, so everything became more difficult as it had a choking effect: you can’t eat properly, drinking is harder and breathing becomes harder. So not only did I have the COVID I initially went into hospital with, I had a punctured lung and emphysema, too.
One thing led to another, and soon I was admitted to intensive care. While in there, I had what’s called a tocilizumab injection, which cost about £ 500 per bottle. I required six of them to help lower my immune system, as they needed to give me double the impact of the steroids to work on the COVID.
I eventually came out of intensive care but wasn’t getting any better. I went back downstairs into the ward I was in, but one night woke up at about 4am with chest pains. That could be anything from bad wind to a heart attack, but I was taken to intensive care again. When I got back there, the doctor wanted me to go to sleep for a few hours – but I didn’t want to because I thought to myself, ‘ If I go to sleep, I might never wake up’. If I was going to die, I wanted to be awake so I knew it was happening. It might sound weird, but I didn’t want to be asleep.
I kept thinking, ‘ I’m not going to die now, I love my family too much’. I didn’t want my daughters growing up without a dad like I did. I also thought about some of my close mates, who even now still rely on me to a certain degree for advice. I thought about how I’ve had to fight for quite a few things in my life and how I’ve also fought for other people. There were things I’d have told them about what they can achieve, so it was time to take a bit of my own medicine and make sure there was enough fight left in me.
Fortunately, I managed to come through it and get out of intensive care again. I had a huge three- day hit of steroids – I was on 60 a day rather than five to seven, which was the recommended dose. I needed to have a three- day hit of an intravenous drip. Thanks to my specialist, Katrina Curtis, that was key to me getting better.
Everyone thinks the Shrewsbury job would have been a distraction during that time, but it was my motivation. It gave me something to do and a sense of purpose. I arrived just over a month before I became poorly, but ended up making some fantastic relationships in a short period – with the staff, players, board and supporters. And I thought,
all need me.
That was a great focus because I had a very young staff – certainly my assistant manager, Aaron Wilbraham, and David Longwell, who’d
“NORMALLY A PERSON IS LIVING OFF 20 PER CENT OXYGEN – WHEN I GOT TO HOSPITAL I NEEDED 91 PER CENT”
joined from Shrewsbury’s academy. Everyone performed brilliantly in my absence. There were only a couple of games when I couldn’t get some sort of message to them when I was in hospital, and that was while I was in intensive care – it just wasn’t possible to converse with anyone in those moments. As soon as I was back on the ward, I was on the phone with Aaron.
I couldn’t always talk for long as I was on oxygen, but throughout my time in hospital, I never slept well due to my steroid dose being so high. I might be tired at 9pm but that was the fatigue time, so I’d
“PEOPLE THINK THE SHREWSBURY JOB WOULD HAVE PROVED A DISTRACTION, BUT IT GAVE ME A SENSE OF PURPOSE”
wake up at 2am and be sat there, completely wide awake. I used to do all of my preparation until about 5am, send it by Whatsapp to Aaron, then he’d wake up to half a dozen pages of what to do in training that day. Aaron would get up, read it while he was having his breakfast and then give me a call when he jumped in the car. We’d talk through page one, two and so forth.
It was difficult, though. I had a few training clips I could look at, but the trouble was that they were too far away for me to see. By the time I’d zoomed in to check who made that pass or who did that one thing in training, the play had moved on – it was a waste of time. The Wi- Fi was useless in the hospital, so I was using my phone to watch games in bed using 4G.
I felt awful only talking to Aaron most of the time, but I didn’t have the air in me to have conversations with everyone – though I did speak to the players in the dressing room using a Bluetooth speaker once. As I got better, I was finally able to visit the training ground and see everyone face to face for the first time in four months, and I felt well enough to sit in the stands to watch our game against Oxford in May.
Through the summer, apart from doing transfer work and meetings, I was going to the gym. I’d try to arrange those meetings around days I wasn’t at the gym – because as challenging as it was, that physical work was really important for me. It meant I knew that when I came back to the job, I’d be strong enough to do it. If I hadn’t improved my fitness, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to coach.
When I returned, a pre- season friendly against Telford was the first game back in front of our supporters. The minute I walked out in front of them gave me goosebumps and brought hairs up on the back of my neck. The love I received from them all was massive.
I’d already said to the players before the game that I wanted to get a relationship going with the fans this year, and do something they’d enjoy. Celebrating with them afterwards was part of that, but I didn’t want to go out there and it to become about me. I wanted the players to enjoy the love our supporters had for me, and for them to love the lads equally as well. We ended up doing three cheers as we’d won the match, but it was simply to get some connection going with our fans. Doing that only for myself wouldn’t have felt right for me and would have been a bit embarrassing, so I wanted the players to be there too. That night coming back at Telford was one to remember. I think about it with such fondness.
The start of the season, in regards to my rehabilitation, was a good time for me – it was Saturday- Tuesday- Saturday- Tuesday, but results didn’t go great. That made it tougher, but health- wise for me it won’t get any tougher than what I went through. After being in a scenario where you’ve been fighting for your life, you know you can fight your way through that sort of thing. My life has always been about football, and the minute kick- off time comes I’m ready for it.
Am I back to normal? No, but I’m OK and my strength is much better. I’ve not suffered from anything else that some have post- COVID – it’s just breathing every now and then that catches you out. We had one match in the League Cup when I was rough. COVID makes you feel like you’re asthmatic – or that’s what the doctors and nurses have told me. I felt slightly short of breath, so had to take a backwards step and let my coaches do most of the yelling on the touchline. The next morning, I was as clear as anything.
The way I see it is like when you’re trying to beat your time running a particular distance – you know that if you stick at it, you’ll improve. You know you’ll get fitter and stronger. I think it’s the same with this.
There are lots of people who have had this awful illness worse than me and didn’t come out the other side, and I’m so sorry for them and their families. I’m very thankful that I’m still here to tell my tale.