“I’ve never felt so lonely in my life,” Brian McDermott says, casting his mind back to the afternoon of May 30 2011.
He had made that day his crowning glory. It was the day when the Slough boy from Slough’s council house would finally let go of his insecurities to find happiness. It was his first season of managing at professional level. He had also led. Reading to the Championship play-off final — 90 minutes from promotion, 90 minutes from the Premier LeagueJust 90 minutes away, he is free from the impostor Syndrome that haunted his career as a player and manager for many years.
They were down 3-0 after 40 minutes Swansea City. “I’m on the touchline at Wembley, 86,000 people there, and it’s raining and I can’t even see because my glasses are steamed up and the players are having a go at each other and I need to get to half-time just to try and get some sense of order,” he says.
McDermott’s comments at half-time were correct. Within 12 minutes of the restart, Reading had pulled it back to 3-2, but the equaliser didn’t come. Instead, with ten minutes left, Swansea scored again and McDermott’s world collapsed.
“I just thought I’d let everyone down,” he says at his home in Buckinghamshire. “Players, staff, the fans, my family, everyone. And that’s when that low self-esteem really kicks in. That voice: ‘Told you you weren’t good enough. Told you you wouldn’t do it. And you’re never going to be in this position again and no one knows who you are and no one cares about you.’”
McDermott knew only one way to get rid of pain. He drank. He did. He had always liked a drink and he always felt alcohol “gave me a sense of ease and made me feel more comfortable within myself”, but in the weeks that followed that Wembley defeat he says he “crossed the line”. He was using alcohol to forget, to ease the pain, and to drown out the voices in his head.
McDermott struggled after defeat with Reading in the 2011 Championship play-off final (Photo: Mike Egerton – PA Images via Getty Images)
“And I never spoke to anybody,” he says. “I went to a counsellor a few times, but I just talked generally. I never spoke of alcohol. I never shared how I felt. It was a waste of time because I wasn’t telling the truth. Because I believed alcohol was my friend, I was in denial.
“And it was so self-centred because I had a family that’s amazing to me, friends who are amazing, a great staff full of fantastic people, the Reading fans who were always brilliant for me. I should have been grateful for the things I had. But at the time, I couldn’t see anything. I was so upset by what was going on in my head.
“So what was the question? Does football management feel lonely? Sometimes, it can be very lonely.
“But I could feel lonely in a crowded room.”
It’s more than seven years since McDermott last touched a drop of alcohol. He was still scouting. ArsenalThe club where he started his playing career. He will recall his final drinking session, beginning in the directors’ lounge at West Bromwich Albion, in excruciating detail, but he wants to talk about more than addiction. He wants to discuss mental well-being.
He was responsible for Reading and Leeds UnitedMcDermott is always described as friendly, cheerful, and a breath of fresh oxygen. But that wasn’t how he felt. He felt just like he did throughout his adult life.
McDermott was just 17 when he made his Arsenal debut in March 1979. He never felt like he fit in. “I remember moving up to the first-team dressing room and I was so nervous I could hardly speak,” he says. “There was that feeling of angst, that feeling of ‘Look at all these big-hitters. I don’t belong here.’”
He played 72 games for Arsenal in a period of five years, scoring 13 goals. But he never made a name for himself. “It was probably because of my personality,” he says. “I was shy and I found it quite hostile. Whether it was hostile or not, that was the narrative in my head.”
McDermott scores Arsenal’s victory against Everton in 1982 (Photo courtesy Getty Images)
This was made worse, he believes, by a crisis or identity. Both his parents were Irish and he felt 100 per cent Irish — and still does — yet he felt pressurised to commit to his native England at under-18 level and regretted it immediately. He says it left him with a “lack of identity” and became a bigger issue in his mind than people could possibly imagine.
“I know now that I’m Irish,” he says. “That’s no disrespect to England, but it’s more how my heart is. Although my blood is Irish, I am Irish to the core. However, I had to learn to accept that fact for a long time. Would my journey have been any different if I’d played for Ireland? I don’t know. Because if I’m honest here’s a part of me that always wanted something more, thinking that something else would be my answer. And it never was.”
He went on to Oxford United, which was a bigger fish in an even smaller pond and helped them get promoted to the top flight. It didn’t fulfil him. He was promoted again. CardiffCity and Exeter City, but the accomplishments brought him an empty feeling instead of the euphoria that he believed he was creating.
“You know you have those bus tours around the city when you get promoted?” he says. “I didn’t go on either of them, with Cardiff or Exeter. I was able to play in almost every game both seasons. But I didn’t feel good enough to go on the bus with my team-mates. How sad is it that I felt that way as a man in my 20s?”
But what was he trying to do? “I had this impostor syndrome going on, no self-esteem, this part of me saying to myself, ‘You’re no good,’” he says. “I was constantly fighting with it.
“People talk about resilience. Would I say I’m resilient? Yes, I’m resilient. But was I resilient and well-being? No, I didn’t. I was up all the time, miserable, living in a population of one inside my head, and trying to cope with it all. And I convinced myself that the one way to stop my head going around like that was by drinking.”
McDermott spent a lot of time pondering over Wembley’s play-off loss, and he finally decided that leading Reading to Premier League success was what would bring him fulfillment.
“There was always something,” he says. “Get a new job, get more money, that will be the answer. It wasn’t. Buy a better car. That’s the answer. It wasn’t. Expand my home. That’s the answer. It wasn’t. ‘Oh, I know what it is. The Premier League management. You will be recognized by others. People will want to get to know you. That’s the answer.’
“That next season, we lost five of our first seven games (in all competitions). I’m thinking, ‘I’m on the edge here.’ We got to November, lost at Nottingham Forest. We finished 16th in the league, but we were still miles away from it. At one point I woke up and said to my wife, ‘I can’t do this. I don’t know what to do.’ She said, ‘Win the next game.’ ‘Win the next game! Why I didn’t think of that?’”
They won the next game, and they continued to win. They were at the top of the Championship and on the brink of promotion. “Big crowd at the Madejski, big game against Forest, Mikele Leigertwood puts it in the net, 81 minutes, and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, we’re actually going to do this,’” he says. “The whistle goes, Nigel (Gibbs, his assistant) gives me a hug and I breathe out. We’ve won promotion.”
It was a long, drunken, and boozy night. McDermott cringes at the memory of slurring through a celebration speech in which he was too eager to remind Reading’s supporters he had proved them wrong. He went to sleep at 3.30 a.m. and woke up four hour later, still not feeling the blissful sensation he was expecting.
“And I’m thinking, ‘Is that it?”’ he says. “‘Why don’t I feel any different? Why is that void still there…? I know exactly what it is. We’ve got to win the league.’”
You know what’s coming next. Reading were confirmed as champions three days later and McDermott enjoyed the celebration party, but when he woke up the next morning, “it was still no different. And it’s just this enormous void, this enormous sense of ‘Not enough’ and I’m saying to myself, ‘What is happening? What is the point? This should be the greatest time ever.’”
It wasn’t his lack of self-assurance that made McDermott an unlikely addition to the cast of Premier League managers in 2012. He had not left Arsenal for almost 30 years. His reputation as a player and his name were not what earned him a shot at the top.
McDermott sold insurance for a year after his playing career ended. McDermott recalls being interviewed for a job as a sales representative for franking machines.
“I don’t even know why I was there,” he says. “This guy said, ‘Where do you see yourself in five years?’ I didn’t have a clue, so I just said, ‘I want to be doing what you’re doing.’ To be honest, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Where would I be in five years’ time? If I’d been honest, I would have said, ‘I’m struggling to get through the day, mate, never mind five years.’
“Seriously, what do I know? I’m not being funny. I didn’t have a clue about franking machines or how to sell them. I was just looking for a job. I had a wife and two kids.”
Salvation was originally a volunteer for the Slough Town community scheme, and later as a manager.
He wanted Terry Cooper to be his manager as a player. In an effort to assert his authority, he lost sight of the fact as a rookie manger. “One player’s wife told me, ‘You’re making his life a misery,’” he says, “I look back and I’m ashamed at that.
“There was a part of me that treated that lad the way I was treated by certain managers. Maybe I thought, ‘That must be the way you’ve got to do it.’ But I learned from it and said I wouldn’t manage like that ever again. I hope I didn’t. I did raise my voice at times of course, but generally I didn’t do that. To me, that wasn’t the way forward.”
McDermott was an unorthodox addition to the Premier League management team in 2012-13 (Photo by Getty Images).
He led Slough to the FA Trophy semi final but was forced to quit due to financial difficulties. He was only in charge for just over a full year at Woking. At that time, it was unimaginable that his next managerial position would take him to Reading, where he would lead them to the Premier League.
As chief scout, he also served as a youth-team coach. He loved scouting and, in particular, trawling. IrelandTo find Kevin Doyle or other players, click here Shane LongCork City. Both would be huge contributors to the Reading team, which won promotion under Steve Coppell’s leadership in 2006 and placed eighth in the Premier League in 2007. “That was probably as happy as I’ve been in any job,” he says.
McDermott was content to work as a scout for Alan Pardew and Coppell, and briefly Brendan Rodgers. McDermott became the caretaker manager when Rodgers was fired in December 2009. Reading 21st was the Championship’s highest ranking team.
“I wasn’t looking for a manager’s job at all, but I had been there nine years and felt I had a duty to the staff and the players,” he says. “My league form in those first five games was hopeless and I don’t think the fans were too exuberant about me as manager. Then we had a great result at Anfield (beating). Liverpool2-1 in the FA CupFourth round. That gave me a bit of credibility and I got the job.”
He enjoyed management. Although he enjoyed certain aspects of management, especially the training ground, he admits that he isn’t sure how a manager can enjoy his job.
He had to have enjoyed beating Liverpool at Anfield. “I wouldn’t call it Joy,” he says. “The final minutes, I just remember watching the referee, saying, ‘Blow the whistle. Blow it now.’ Then the ref blows and you go, ‘Thank God’. He exhales and then his shoulders sag. It’s not joy or elation. It’s relief. It’s a relief to be able to go to bed tonight. To a point.”
How about the defeats? “A horrible sinking feeling,” he says, “which in my case could last for days. What should you do about the sinking feeling in your stomach? I had only one idea how to get rid it.
“But I was one of these people who, if I had one drink, I’d drink too much and I wouldn’t stop. It was how I felt since I was a professional player. It only got worse when I was a manager. If we lost a game, I’d drink to numb the pain. It didn’t matter if we won or lost, it was the same. It numbed everything, including any happiness I might have had.”
It was a remarkable period in McDermott’s life — suddenly a Premier League manager, taking his unfancied team to Stamford Bridge and Anfield and putting up a good fight — but he didn’t feel like someone riding on the crest of a wave.
He admitted to being in the spotlight, having a conversation with Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and says it gave him an ego boost. “And I would try to get off on that,” he says. “But there were different things. In terms of my job, I had always believed that we could win at Old Trafford and Anfield. But then I had this small self-esteem where I felt I wasn’t good enough. It’s the two things. I’m fighting them both: that (points to one shoulder) and that (points to the other).”
Reading was at the bottom of Boxing Day’s table with only one win in 19 games. But then, something clicked and they won five of seven. McDermott was manager of the month for January — another brief ego boost — and he was told his job would be safe even if they were relegated. After four consecutive defeats, they fell back to the bottom three, and McDermott was fired.
The strange thing is that job insecurity had been the least of McDermott’s worries. “I never had that,” he says. “I didn’t worry about losing my job. It was a shock when it happened, but it’s fine, I get it.”
McDermott returned to Leeds within a month and was soon back at work. Leeds were in danger of being relegated to League One. He quickly gained the respect of the players and led the struggling team to three wins over their five previous games. They finished 13th, the fans liked him and, despite uncertainty at boardroom level under GFH Capital’s ownership, things felt good. They reached the halfway point in the following season and were in the playoffs, pushing for promotion.
Then, he suffered a crushing 6-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday on January 2014. “Horrific,” he says. “Every single game, I would think, ‘We’re going to win, we’re going to win.’ That’s my ego. And then this other voice would say, ‘No you’re not. You’re going to lose 6-0 and it’s going to be so embarrassing.’ That had never actually happened. It happened. Horrific.”
McDermott was informed that Massimo Cellino, an Italian businessman was coming to McDermott’s rescue. The Athletic’s Phil Hay has devoted an entire podcast to the farcical events of “Mad Friday”. McDermott remained in office for a short time, but it was clear that the end was near.
McDermott is diplomatic about Cellino, saying only that it was “very difficult” to work with an owner who felt he knew better than any manager or coach. Given the nature of their working relationship and their inevitable parting at the end of that season — Cellino castigated him publicly for taking a holiday (“Where’s Brian?”) when the manager was looking after his sick mother — it is surprising to learn that they still talk.
That’s the thing about McDermott. There is introspection, a lot of it, but he doesn’t blame anyone else for anything. “I’ve never been bitter,” he says. “If I was resentful or bitter, I know it could only hurt me.”
Living alone during his time at Leeds didn’t help McDermott’s issues with alcohol. But he says he was “always professional” and that it never affected his work. “It was always in the evenings or after games,” he says. “I had a rule. I didn’t pick a drink up before 6pm.”
The floodgates would open when the clock struck six. “Guinness, lager, red wine. I didn’t drink spirits, but I was obsessed,” he says. “If you don’t have a problem, you can drink or not drink and it won’t really matter. But I would get obsessed about wanting to give up — and then not drink for a week or two — and then I would get obsessed about having a drink. When I did drink, I drank way too much.
“If someone has got a drink problem, it’s not always the way people think of it. Most of the time it’s not someone drinking on a park bench. Of course, sometimes it is, but there are a lot of professional people — doctors, you name it — with a drink problem. I was a professional who had a problem with alcohol. I’d had this problem for years with self-esteem and impostor syndrome and that had built up into a drink problem.”
McDermott was unable to attribute his drinking to management pressures at this point. McDermott had been re-joined Arsenal in late 2014. He was a senior international scout and while there was still pressure, the job wasn’t nearly as demanding. He enjoyed being on the road a lot, and the social aspects of scouting were much more enjoyable after his isolation as a manager.
It all came to an end in February 2015. “It was an FA Cup game at West Brom (against West Ham), Saturday lunchtime and I was there as a guest,” he says. “I’d been out the night before and as I got to the boardroom, I said to myself, ‘Definitely not drinking today.’ I went in and asked for a sparkling water, sat down. ‘That’s good. I can do this.’ Then the waiter came over. ‘Red or white wine?’ I’m supposed to say, ‘Diet Coke.’ I said red. I had half a bottle of red wine and then watched the game.”
The rest of the day brought a series of moments — on the train home, at Marylebone station, at Beaconsfield station — where he found himself fighting with his urge to have another drink. He was just about to find the will to hop in a taxi at Beaconsfield station. “And I’m thinking, ‘I just need to get home,’” he says. “‘Don’t stop at the pub. Go straight home.’
“As we reach the end of my street, I say to the driver, ‘No need to take me to the door. You can leave me here. It’s fine. Thank you.’ So I get out and I’ve given myself a choice. I have two options. One, I can go to the pub and one is to my home. ‘Don’t go to the pub.’ I go to the pub. ‘I’ll only stay until nine.’ I stay until one. Then, I come back to you. ‘Go straight to bed. Don’t go to the kitchen.’ I go to the kitchen and I stay there drinking until three.
“I woke up the next morning and I’d just had enough. I said to my wife, ‘I can’t do this anymore. Please can you help me?’ She put her arms around me. I called the doctor and we chatted. I was able to go to recovery program, where I opened up to a group of people and went through the process. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I haven’t had a drink since.”
McDermott received another chance to manage Reading in December 2015. It wasn’t like the first time; results were up and down and he was moved on at the end of the season. “And that’s fine,” he says. “I probably needed more time to do what I wanted to do — get good people through the door, create the right culture and environment — but it’s fine. I was ten months without a drink when I went back, but I was still a bit rocky.”
Arsenal were pleased to welcome him back. He plays down his influence, saying he was part of a big network of scouts led by Francis Cagigao and Steve Rowley and that, while the job of identifying talent fell to the specialists in each region, “it was my job to have a view and give an opinion. I was involved with (William), Saliba, and (Pierre-Emerick), Aubameyang. But we were a team.”
Was Saliba a notable exception? “Absolutely,” McDermott says. “Ty Gooden had spotted him at Saint-Etienne and I was asked to go and give my opinion. He was very friendly and I saw him several times. I was the first to see him play right-back. I could see he wasn’t a right-back, but he was absolutely nailed on to be a top player.”
McDermott opens a file on his phone, and McDermott pulls out a list of 2018 players. McDermott opens a file and pulls out a list of players he recommended in 2018. Wolves), Elif Elmas (then at Fenerbahce, now at Napoli) and… Erling Haaland(then at Molde. Now threatening to break all Premier League goal scoring records at Manchester City).
McDermott was an Arsenal Scout and saw a young Erling Haaland. (Photo by Getty).
John Vik, Molde’s former chief scout, Recently told The Athletic that Arsenal and Liverpool “could have got” HaalandHe joined Red Bull Salzburg in 2019 before that. McDermott isn’t so sure. He recommended Haaland to Arsenal, but his conversations with the player’s father Alfie left him feeling it was a non-starter.
“People can say such-and-such a club could have had him, but a lot of it is pie in the sky,” McDermott says. “I watched Haaland three times and I was, like, ‘Blimey, who is this kid?’ I met his dad and we had really good conversations, but I felt they knew the path they wanted for him.
“You can go to a massive club at that age and you can get lost. I’m not saying he would have done, because he was outstanding, but I just sensed he and his dad wanted to do it differently. It was already written. He was at Salzburg. Borussia DortmundYes, that’s right. There you can travel to Manchester City. Real Madrid, wherever. They had it worked out.”
McDermott loved his time scouting — “It’s my thing, I’m passionate about it” — and he was shocked when he, Cagigao, Gooden and others were made redundant in 2020 in an overhaul of the recruitment operation.
“I was devastated,” he says. “Amazing club, brilliant people, I loved it and I thought I was doing a good job. I was very sad, but they made a choice and I’m so pleased to see them flying at the moment because it’s a wonderful football club. Sometimes in life, you get the bad stuff and you feel it — and I felt it. I was disappointed, it was painful, but that’s life.”
McDermott, now 61, hasn’t managed for six years and hasn’t been employed as a scout for the past two. He is still a consultant and offers quiet advice to clubs. He also conducts seminars for the League Managers Association, among other organizations.
His insights are now more valuable because he is willing to share all of his experiences, including his struggles with self-esteem and drinking problems.
Do other managers have an addiction to alcohol or are they also struggling? “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t speculate. All I can do, is tell my story. That way, no one can say, ‘Well that’s bollocks’. It’s not bollocks because it’s what happened to me.
“When I do my presentations, it’s not just about addiction. It’s about not feeling good enough. It’s about success, failure, finding balance. For me, that is the most important thing. All those managers in the Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two, they’ve all got resilience — because you couldn’t do that job without resilience — but if you haven’t got mental well-being and if you haven’t got the balance to go with it, it really isn’t a great place to be.
“And it is lonely, football management. I don’t want to sound extreme, but when you lose a game it feels like a grieving process. It’s only a game of football, but it hits you so hard. Even if you win, you can’t enjoy the highs. It’s just non-stop. It’s constant. There’s no time to breathe.”
McDermott is able to take a deep breath right now. “One of my main ambitions in life was to get a good night’s kip,” he says. “I couldn’t do that until I stopped drinking. In the past, I was lonely if I was alone. I’m able to be by myself, but I don’t feel lonely. I can comfortably sit. I can let go of negative thoughts if they arise. They’re only thoughts.”
A rare moment of panic struck him recently when he was given a two night booking to speak to Blue Collar Corner in Reading. “I thought, ‘No one’s going to turn up. Why would they?’” he says. “But both nights sold out and now they’re doing a third and I’m so grateful. It will be a pleasure to share my story with the Reading fans. They’ll know every step of that journey, but this is how it was from my perspective. It’s a different story.”
It seems like the story has a happy end. “I don’t have that void anymore,” he says. “I’ve come to terms with the Ireland/England thing. I’m happy when I look back at my career. I’m a good husband, a good grandad, a good friend. I’m all right.
“I make sure I have peace in my day, start it the right way. If I’m struggling, I talk to someone. And that’s the thing. Nothing changed until my wife and I reached out to her. It took me quite a while. I don’t recommend waiting until you’re 53.”
(Top Image: Getty Images; Design by Eamonn Dallton
