StriFe oF BriAN

IT’S more than eight years since Brian McDermott last touched a drink and began the process of coming out “a dark place”.

15, 2015. Having drank until three in the morning he woke up “broken” and finally turned to his wife for help.

He has not touched a drop since.

The former Leeds boss said: “This is really important to me. As far as people opening up — staff, players, whoever. It’s so important, if I can help somebody.

“Because I’ve been in a dark place and I know what it looks like. I’ve lived in a place that was quite dark and I don’t live in that place any more, a day at a time.

“I feel very, very grateful. I’ve got an amazing family at home, who support me, even to the fact my wife sent me on my way to Edinburgh.

“I’ve got a beautiful granddaughter and that’s one of the McDermott has spent the reasons I said to the boss, ‘if last year giving talks on his you’re not sure, don’t bring me mental health struggle and to this football club’. has previously spoken openly “But they were and I’ve about how he’d turn to the come. bottle to help him destress “We’ve all got issues at certain after every defeat. times. I never really

Then it became after every opened up and talked about game. Lose, draw or win. them, until 2015.

Last year he revealed how “It’s my journey, and it’s only everything came to a head my journey, but for me if I did when he was working as chief struggle on a daily basis — scout for Arsenal on February *and I don’t — then I’d open up

The new Hibs director of football feared he’d never get another job in the game after going public with the inner demons that had troubled him through his career.

Those gloomy times are thankfully in the past as the 62-year-old looks to bring some sunshine to Leith in his new job overseeing every aspect of football operations at Easter Road.

But he won’t ever forget that mental toil. Indeed, he admits it can play a key role in his ambition to “create something special” at Hibs.

Defeat

and talk about it. You want to be there for a football player, a member of staff.

“I’m not a psychiatrist, I’m not a psychologist, I just lived a certain way and I’ve gone through certain things. I can signpost people for help if they need it.”

McDermott was encouraged to speak out about his troubles last year. He said: “I didn’t want to do it because I was frightened.

“I didn’t know what the reaction was going to be. I worried I might never get another job in football because of past issues.

Music

“That’s not been the case. I feel stronger for coming out and talking about it.”

That support must be music to the ears for Lee Johnson as he targets a European spot in he final five games of this season.

The Hibs boss has felt the pressure at times this season but McDermott said: “I’ve got a perspective on where the boss sits. I know. I’ve been there.

“Unless you’ve stood on the line as a manager for one game you will never know. It’s really hard. For me, I did nearly 500 games, and people used to say ‘you look calm’.

“I was not calm! When you went 1-0 down my heart rate would drop because I’d think ‘okay now we have nothing to lose and everything to gain’. It was a strange feeling.

“Then I remember we went 1-0 up after three minutes with Reading at Elland Road and I thought ‘Oh my God we have 87 minutes of this now’.

“Then you get the euphoria of the whistle and the relief. It was never joy, it was relief.

“The pressure is ridiculous. The amount of managers leaving football clubs is ridiculous. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

“It’s a moving-on culture, nobody is building anything.

“It’s about trying to create something.”