“I fell out of love with football for a long time,” Steven Caulker says. “When I was suffering from depression and addiction, I completely fell out of love. I couldn’t have imagined anything worse than still being involved. But I managed to rekindle that: I couldn’t really tell you how, it just kind of came back. It’s pleasing to get it back in a new way, a new form, and now I can enjoy the moment. I loved training this morning. We’ve got a game this afternoon. I just really like being here, being present.”
It is Tuesday morning and the former Tottenham, Liverpool and England defender, who now captains Sierra Leone, sits on a bench wheeled on to a blue track around the grass at the Enrique López Cuenca, a municipal athletics ground in the little seaside town of Nerja. To the right a woman launches a medicine ball. From the left a Dutch running club passes. “Life’s so random,” he says, gesturing beyond them. “My girlfriend lives not far away. Me and my little boy stayed in a hotel, not joking, two minutes down there.” Now it’s home, where Caulker has just become player-manager of Málaga City, in Spain’s fifth tier.
Caulker, 32, is a fascinating, articulate, warm man of depth and honesty. It is only nine months since he left Wigan and a couple of weeks since he was training at Charlton. This was not planned and it is a big task. Early too. He is learning Spanish, still has to get his A and Pro licences and is waiting for the residency papers that formally permit him to be on the pitch or the bench during matches. But he is happy today and that’s something. For a recovering addict who battled depression, it is everything. The only bad thing, he says, is when they throw javelins and shot puts on to the pitch.
The Málaga City academy was founded by George Jermy in 2013. There are 175 players from 40 countries, eight teams of all ages. The senior side, where Jermy is the left-back and Caulker will be in central defence, plays in Group 9 of the 324-team Tercera Federación, below La Liga’s first and second divisions, the 40 teams and two groups of Primera Federación and the 90-team Segunda Federación. They are in the relegation zone and Caulker’s first game as coach ended in a 6-0 defeat. “In at the deep end,” he says, smiling.
“What George has created is amazing,” Caulker says. “Players get another chance, get work too, learn a new skill. My Behind the White Lines academy guides footballers released by academies, helping them find clubs, preparing them for other paths and I had been talking to Málaga City about opportunities for them. It wasn’t about me but George wore me down. Bit by bit. When I got my B licence, he messaged: ‘Come here, develop as a coach. You can play too. Best of both worlds.’
“I definitely wasn’t always looking to be a coach. But when I joined Sierra Leone, I got involved. I got that feeling, a passion: impact the game differently. I had been looking in the UK for a player-manager job. The feedback was: ‘You haven’t got the experience.’ The market is saturated. So when they gave me the opportunity here, I thought: ‘Yeah, I want it.’”
So soon? At 32, it is early to depart the professional game. “Yeah, but I started at 17 and to be honest …” Caulker begins, the pause saying much. He’d had enough. Charlton would have been his 15th club. Wigan ended with him speaking up for players and tearful staff who had not been paid. He was tired of moving around, being away from his son, his family. Of the whole thing, the disillusionment.
Caulker scored on his debut for England, was so good at Alanyaspor that Fenerbahce came for him and there’s huge enthusiasm in how he talks about Sierra Leone. But football, life, had not been easy and he was unable to enjoy the moment. He became an addict: first gambling, then alcohol. He would black out, wake up in police cells and find himself before judges. The shame was intense. He lost his money and his driving licence, was diagnosed with depression and fell critically ill. Addiction, anxiety and self-loathing, partly a product of the game, had left him considering suicide.
Photograph: Phil Noble/REUTERS
“It becomes your life. I put pressure on myself because it was my whole identity. For maybe seven, eight years now my dad has said: ‘If you don’t want to play football, don’t. I don’t think it’s good for you.’ It’s every dad’s dream but he’s like: ‘Please, do what makes you happy. Don’t chase it. You don’t need it. All I want is you to be happy. I don’t need to go to Wembley or Fenerbahce.’
“At Wigan, Kolo Touré signed me. Ten days later he’s sacked. I thought: ‘What am I doing?’ Closure came at Charlton. It was the right time. I realised I didn’t want it. So that’s basically it. In Turkey I enjoyed football again away from the pressure cooker, a clean canvas where no one knew me. And Sierra Leone was completely new. But then the pain of a bad move at Fenerbahce and two nightmare years brought me to the end. I could go to another club for six months or start something fresh. That’s why I took this opportunity.
“Thing is,” he adds. “I want to play for the national team still, which is why this isn’t just coaching. I have a responsibility. We never qualified for this Afcon, which I’m gutted about and I definitely want to take us to the next. As captain, that’s my duty. We have created a culture over two years. Players look up to me, always on the phone for support; I’m not ready to step away. I would like to play a couple more years and potentially manage them one day. So I need to play here regularly.”
Is this level good enough to play internationally? “Good question. I guess time will tell.”
What happens when he has to drop himself? Caulker laughs. “I don’t know, I hope that day doesn’t come. It may do. We had to sub George at half-time the other day! It’s going to take honest reflection but at this stage of my life I have that. I’m able to be honest with myself, accountable.
“A purpose, I would call it,” Caulker says. “I know there’s pressure too but it’s different because I’ve done a lot of therapy. I am more mature. When I was younger I was so impulsive. Football’s not my whole identity now. It’s something I do. I’m a father. I do recoveries, the 12-step programme. I have a school in Africa. I’m someone who likes to help people.
“I’ve worked with managers who would literally go ‘OK lads, five-a-side’ and with some geniuses. Francesco Farioli: possession and playing out. Brendan Rodgers: I was 19 and he made me feel at home, loved, welcomed. Kolo: every morning, big bear hugs. So positive. Jürgen Klopp: his press was genuinely different, unbelievable. I was always on the other XI in training and I could see, day by day, how good they were getting. I receive the ball, and bang, bang, bang. I left there thinking: ‘They’re going to win the Premier League.’
“I can learn from them all and I would like to play a high press: with possession and intensity. But after my experiences, my biggest strength will be man-management, 100%. Communication with players, honesty … it sounds simple, right? But I swear, 15 years as a pro and you rarely see it. On Thursday or Friday I give the team. Looking back, I didn’t like finding out at 1.30pm, by which time your whole family is in the stands, they’ve travelled up. You thought you’re playing … and then you feel that shame.
“I’ll put my arm round players, give opportunity, but there’s a reality too. I’ve had managers who say: ‘You’re better than them, I’d take you over any of them,’ and you’re thinking: ‘You would literally transfer all of us.’ I wasn’t ready for the opportunity at Liverpool so I was moved aside, rightly. Hendo [Jordan Henderson], [Adam] Lallana and [James] Milner were driving standards forwards. But I wasn’t in a good place mentally. At the time, you can feel hard done by but looking back, having done therapy, I see it. I respect it.”
Could things have been different? “Probably not. I went straight from Liverpool to rehab – for the second time. It had to happen. I had to hit rock bottom to be where I am today.
“I’ve had several rock bottoms. I kept falling and falling. I have hit rock bottom while in recovery, rock bottom when sober. Financial rock bottom, emotional rock bottom, physical rock bottom. Another is when no team will touch you, no one returns your calls, no one gives you an opportunity. People look for one moment.”
Caulker clicks his fingers. “But there isn’t one, there are several. Eventually it’s that need, absolute desperation. ‘I’ll do anything. Help me change.’ The key for me is maintaining it. Honestly, it’s the biggest message I give people: it’s a daily discipline.”
That’s here each morning, an hour’s drive from Málaga with language tapes and therapy groups for company. “I wake up, do my gratitude list: 10 things I am grateful for and five I don’t miss. I do serenity prayers. Some days you feel it, some you don’t … You go abroad you can lose your recovery network but there are English [groups] here and, since Covid, online meetings. I leave at 6.30am, do a meeting in the car. I get here and I’m good to go.
“There might be a little naivety but I come here, away from the pressure to get results or be sacked in two, three games. No date on the contract: a chance to make mistakes, express myself and find what works for me. Honestly, I don’t have a plan. Maybe the ultimate goal is be back in Premier League as a manager but I have no idea how to get there. I’m in the fifth division in Spain. It’s exciting because the possibilities are endless.”
There’s the smile again. “Personally, I feel good at the moment,” Caulker says. “Really good. My girlfriend is by my side. My family know how random my life is and can hear in my voice that I’m settled. Everything’s positive … Without purpose in life I do struggle, for sure. Having this helps me, guides me, gives me meaning, something to get up for.
“Some days you have to dig for the gratitude, but it gives me perspective and that’s vital because as a Premier League player I couldn’t see it. It was irrelevant what I was doing, what I was earning. I could have had Rolexes and Ferraris, and I was never happy. I would have traded all that in for this. I would rather sit here at peace. The sun’s coming up and it’s nice.”
• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
