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Matty Blair was out walking Bruce, his beagle, as he does every morning before training, in the rows of fields behind his house in Rossington in September when he suddenly fainted while chatting with friends. He remembers feeling hot and bothered, taking off his coat and letting his dog off the leash to play, although, after that, the Doncaster Rovers midfielder does not really recall how he ended up on the floor. Crucially, what happened that morning prompted him http://www.49ersofficialauthenticshop.com/57-eli-harold-super-bowl-jersey.html to seek help, three months into what he describes as the toughest season of his life after the heartbreak of losing his older brother, Ross.
“That was the eye-opener for everything else,” Blair says, admitting that, until then, he had neglected the impact Ross’s death had had on him personally, instead prioritising caring for his own family, including his father Andy, formerly of Aston Villa, and his baby son, Archie. Blair, in a classroom looking out over the Keepmoat Stadium, speaks so warmly about Ross, who died last July aged 32, and so openly about a summer that conjured up the cruellest of juxtapositions. Blair credits “mother’s instinct” for his mum, Dionne, ensuring his brother met Archie the day after he was born, as, a day later, Ross, who was diagnosed with a rare grade-four primitive neuroectodermal tumour http://www.tampabaylightningofficialonline.com/Adidas-Brett-Howden-Jersey (PNET) in February 2014, suffered a big seizure, one he never truly recovered from. That weekend he was taken to University hospital in Coventry before spending around six weeks at the Myton hospice in Warwick.
“I feel as normal as I probably can feel, eight months into grieving,” the 28-year-old says. “I struggled to get out of bed in the morning, to get myself motivated. Running in training was a real slog; it was not coming naturally or anything like that. I felt a complete pudding, I felt completely out of it and very distant. I was giving the ball away – every footballer gives the ball away – but I was thinking about it that night, over and over again. I couldn’t get it out of my head.”
On the morning he fainted, when his friends, the Boston United defender Liam Wakefield and his girlfriend, Sasha, stood over him, frantically asking if he was all right, he walked home as normal but his wife, Xanthe, stopped him from going into training. “She came up to me, grabbed my car keys out of my hands and said: ‘You are not going anywhere,’” he says. “I was going in, 100%, I was ready, dressed to go. I phoned the physio and my wife then actually took the phone off me and explained fully what had happened.” A visit to the club doctor followed, as did urine and blood tests, plus an MRI scan.
Blair admits he felt “all over the place” and the day before Doncaster’s trip to Bradford City, his manager, Darren Ferguson, told him not to bother coming in for that weekend’s game. On the Monday, Ferguson called Blair into his office, informing him he would be taking a few weeks off, to go on holiday to completely shut off. Until flying to Spain 10 days later, he was still part of match-day squads, keen to have an impact off the bench, but while football has since proved a sanctuary and a welcome distraction, there was a mutual reluctance between Blair and the manager about him playing. It had dawned on him, he says, that he needed to adapt to life without Ross.
“It was after the Charlton game, I spoke to James Coppinger because I had played 20 minutes yet I felt like I had played five straight games,” he says. “I was in the Rees Odhiambo Jersey changing room at the end and I was completely drained. For me to play 20 minutes it should be easy; I should not even really feel it. He said for me to speak to somebody, so I spoke to my mum after that game and we organised for me to get some help.”
Blair had counselling sessions until around Christmas. “It was a strange one because it was with a woman who bought my nan and grandad’s house,” he says, smiling. “My mum Womens Tom Johnson Jersey was brought up in http://www.officialshopraidersonline.com/Gabe_Jackson_Jersey_Cheap the house that I was going to see my counsellor at, so just walking into Danny Woodhead Womens Jersey the house alone was quite nice because I thought my mum was probably running up and down these stairs causing carnage. Straight away it felt like home, so it was not intimidating in any way. We spoke openly, freely, honestly. We cried, we laughed. You come out feeling free. It is not over, Womens Robby Anderson Jersey it is not a case of I have had a couple of counselling sessions and off I go but I am a lot stronger.” cheap nfl jerseys cheap jerseys from china wholesale nfl jerseys from china cheap nfl jerseys wholesale nfl jerseys wholesale nfl jerseys wholesale jerseys |
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