Davy O'Connor: 'I was active in sport - it still became irrelavant when I came to a low point in my life'

Friday is invariably a big day around Shelbourne Football Club – if there's not a home matchnight to cater for at Tolka Park, the first team is playing away, or preparing for an away day.

This Friday saw Shels play their final home fixture of the first round of games, against Galway United, at Tolka Park.

A 2-0 win for Owen Heary’s side saw them leap, temporarily, to the top of the table before UCD and Drogheda United won the following evening.

The morning began earlier than usual for one member of the Shels first team staff – coach Davy O'Connor was running the first of ten marathons in ten days in support of AWARE.

O'Connor – who has struggled with depression throughout his adolescent and adult life – undertook the challenge not so much to raise awareness as to promote understanding of mental health issues.

What's, perhaps, more unusual about the 33-year-old's challenge is he'll run the ten marathons entirely on the running track at the ALSAA Complex in Santry.

105-and-a-half laps of the circuit each day – 1,055 over the ten days – which O'Connor feels is symbolic of the spiral vicious cycle of negative thinking that can accompany bad mental health.

He has been joined on the circuit at various points by supportive friends from Shels – including women’s captain Noelle Murray – while Heary is also set to join in.

On one of the days, he plans to wear the jerseys of all 20 League of Ireland and eight Women's National League clubs in recognition of the cross-league support he's received so far.

“I am a runner,” O'Connor tells extratime.ie.

“I've ran all my life, and I've always been inspired by ultra runners. You only have to do one search into google and see what incredible things people do.

“It all stems from my belief that any one of us is capable of doing and achieving so much more than we give ourselves credit for.

“For me, it was all about doubt I've had in my life. When it comes to running, I don't really doubt myself – I've ran marathons, I've ran mountain runs, I've done ultras.

“I don't have that doubt [with running]. I'm not saying I'm quick or anything, but I'll always get it done. I wanted to go down that sort of angle with some kind of a challenge.

“The multi-day option that I've gone for, the reason I picked the track is the narrative we’re going with that it’s the symbolism.

“The pain and unhappiness and never-ending feeling that you associate with mental illness, but if you associate yourself with the right people and develop the right mindset you can get through that.”

Like most people involved in the game, O’Connor played football as a youth. But his love for the game was tempered by his emotional state, which led to him not enjoying his football.

“I never played at the highest level. I never enjoyed football. I never really enjoyed playing it. I suppose it backs up what I said – I had a very closed mindset. I’d very little confidence playing.

“The issues I hadn’t really dealt with, inside my own head, came to the fore when I was playing football. I wasn’t very pleasant to be around on a football pitch.

“That’s where I started coaching from a young age.

“I put myself into a role of responsibility that maybe gave me a little bit more confidence and gave me an onus to be a little bit more assertive in myself and dealing with other people.

“I haven’t missed playing football yet anyway, but I’m still active so that’s probably why.”

O’Connor’s initiative isn’t so much geared towards spreading awareness – he feels a lot of good work has already been done in that regard – but better understanding.

“The thing is, we associate [mental health issues] with young people but I think, when it comes to mental health awareness in this country, the awareness is there. We've progressed as a nation.

“But it's still maybe a little bit misunderstood. I think when we talk about mental health [issues], we still associate it with major [events], with regard to the very extreme end of it.

“Whether that's very, very extreme depression, or areas around suicide, it's maybe boxed into that area. For me, when I talk about awareness, I talk about the everyday.

“Whether you're old, young, male, female, there's going to be a situation in your life where we're going to be stumped.

“Where we can't decipher where to go. We haven't got the ability to critically analyse the situation. And when that builds up, that's when things begin to flounder and go downhill.

“That's what I talk about – everyday situations that we need to be able to gauge. Maybe that's something that's missed when we talk about mental health awareness overall.”

Working with young footballers on a daily and weekly basis, O’Connor is well aware of the pressures being placed on men and women who are still maturing as people.

The common approach – and one that has many benefits – is to recommend young people suffering from mental issues become more active and a healthy body reinforces a healthy mind.

It’s an approach with which O’Connor has much sympathy, but the logic comes unstuck when you’re dealing with people in his situation – athletes who have similar struggles to everybody else.

“That's the vanilla approach to getting yourself well that's put out in the media, saying it's all about being active and being in sport. I get that, and it's brilliant – there's no badness in it.

“But, for me, when I came to a very low point in my life, I was involved in all those things. But it still became irrelevant when I was miserable.

“I think particularly with the footballers, to use that example, you look at the demands, particularly in our division. You could be training three or four times, with a match that could involve travel.

“You could have a four-hour bus journey or whatever it may be. You could have college work, a girlfriend or boyfriend, a part-time job on the side. You could have issues at home.

“There are so many variables that really aren't taken into account when we think about a part-time or semi-professional footballer in terms of the demands we place on players.

“When you look at how they're being pulled in every which way, it's not difficult to see how it can become overwhelming for some people.

“Particularly, and it would be common with many of our lads as they're quite young, if you're heading into the final year of college.

“You've got a thesis or you're heading towards your degree – that's enough to take on in itself, never mind trying to train as a professional and advance your own ambitions as a footballer.

“There's a lot going on there for people. Look after yourself as a person first, and then look after yourself as a footballer or an athlete.

A link to Davy's Aware 10-in-10 fundraising page is here.