I’d been on Prozac for a month and was out of it. I was on the pitch but didn’t know where I was STAN COLLYMORE

‘TAKE A MINUTE’ FOR MENTAL

I LOVE David and

Goliath clashes in the FA

Cup third round, but I also like nice, meaty all-premier League affairs at this stage as well, which Liverpool versus Everton certainly is. I know Everton’s players will be wanting to impress Carlo Ancelotti and Jurgen Klopp may rest a few regulars. But the halo effect at Liverpool means even their second string will be champing at the bit, with Klopp telling Divock Origi to cement

his reputation as a modern ‘Supersub’ like David Fairclough. That’s why I’m going with

Liverpool to win it.

TWENTY-ONE years ago this month, I went to see a doctor about the mental health issues I was suffering.

That doctor told me I’d feel a lot better if I scored a couple of goals for Aston Villa against Kevin Keegan’s Fulham in the FA Cup.

He’d be struck off if he told me that today, which shows how far we have come in our understanding of mental health over the past two decades.

I’m delighted kick-off is being delayed by a minute in all of this weekend’s FA Cup ties to raise awareness about the subject. I’ve spoken openly and honestly about the problems I have faced since they first surfaced towards the end of my time at Liverpool, when I vividly remember lying in the pink bath at my home – a colour scheme I inherited from the house’s previous owner, I hasten to add – and wondering what was wrong me with me because I had so little energy.

That is how the illness manifested itself in me and still does now. Not knowing what it was, I rang the physio at Liverpool.

He told me to go in for a chat but that chat never happened because it was the March or April and I left the club at the end of that season.

The joy of joining Villa, the club I support, gave me a lift initially but the issues returned a year and a half later and I spoke to Jim Walker, the physio there.

Furore

He recognised immediately that I had a mental health issue and put me in touch with those who pointed me to The Priory.

Going there meant missing an FA Cup fourth-round tie against Fulham and I remember watching the furore that caused on Sky, which only made matters worse.

I’d been named as a substitute but didn’t go to the game and the manager John Gregory laid into me in the press.

My agent Paul Stretford released a statement explaining I was ill and I got battered by one newspaper in particular. It said: Kick this fool out of your club, how dare he have a clinical illness.

But it was simple, it was either speak out or die, and I chose the former.

Three or four weeks later, Jim called to tell me Gregory needed me and I