England star Danny Rose opens up on battle with depression after his uncle hanged himself
WITH brutal and disarming honesty, Danny Rose revealed the 16 months of torment he has suffered in the build-up to his first World Cup.
The Tottenham and England left-back was at his footballing peak when he was cut down by a knee injury in January 2017. But that was only the start of a nightmarish chain of events.
Rose was treated for depression after suffering the anguish of his uncle committing suicide, his mother being racially abused and his brother narrowly avoiding injury in a shooting at the family home.
Throughout that time, Rose has endured a testing relationship with Spurs having criticised the club’s transfer policy in a bombshell interview with SunSport last summer.
The 27-year-old Yorkshireman, a long-term target for Manchester United, admitted his troubles began when a decision to have knee surgery was delayed by four months.
And he insisted that Gareth Southgate’s England set-up has proved his ‘salvation’ as he was able to undergo much of his rehab programme away from his club at the St George’s Park National Football Centre near Burton.
Rose, who has earned a reputation as one of the most intelligent and outspoken men in football, chose England’s media day to open up with courage and candour about his mental health issues.
And these were subjects he had not even discussed with his parents, his club or Southgate.
Rose said: “It’s no secret that I’ve been through a testing time at Tottenham this season, which led to me seeing a psychologist.
“I was diagnosed with depression, which nobody knows about, and I had to get away from Tottenham.
I have been through a lot and England has been my salvation.
“I’m lucky that England gave me the opportunity to get away and refresh my mind and I’ll always be grateful to them.
“I was on medication for a few months but I’m off the medication now and looking forward to how far we can go in Russia.”
Asked how his depression manifested itself, Rose added: “I was getting very angry, very easily.
“I didn’t want to go to football, I didn’t want to do my rehab, I was snapping when I got home, friends were asking me to do things and I wouldn’t want to go out.
“I would come home and go straight to bed.
“It all stemmed from my injury in January last year, when I was advised I didn’t need an operation.
“I don’t know how many tablets I took to try and get fit for Tottenham.
“I had cortisone/PRP (platelet rich plasma) injections to try and get fit and four months down the line — after all that football I missed when the team was flying and I’d been playing well — it was difficult. That was the start of it.”
Rose also spoke about a series of family traumas which have affected him deeply over the past 12 months, starting with the tragic death of his father’s brother.
He said: “Nobody really knows this, either, but my uncle hanged himself in the middle of my rehab and that triggered the depression as well.
“It was really hard and being referred to a doctor and psychologist helped me to cope. I have been through a lot and England has been my salvation, one million per cent.
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“Things were said and things happened behind the scenes at my club, and I don’t want to go into any detail because I’ll end up being fined again.
“But off the field there have been other incidents — back home, my mum was racially abused in Doncaster.
“She was very angry and upset about it, then someone came to the house and nearly shot my brother in the face. A gun was fired at my family’s house.
“Stuff like that was happening throughout my rehab and it was a testing time.
“So England has been my salvation. I cannot thank the manager and the medical staff enough.”
Of his depression, Rose admitted: “You are the only people who know about a lot of this stuff — I haven’t told my mum or my dad and they are probably going to be really angry reading this, but I’ve kept it to myself until now.”
After Rose’s operation was delayed until May 2017, he was not fit until October.
He was restricted to just 11 Premier League appearances last season due to further injury setbacks and Ben Davies replacing him as Mauricio Pochettino’s first-choice left-back.
As a result, Rose admitted he feels lucky to have made Southgate’s World Cup squad — and that he would have been fuming if he was in the position of Southampton’s Ryan Bertrand, the man who lost out to him.
Rose, who will be competing with Ashley Young for a starting spot in Russia, has won 17 caps since making his international debut in a friendly against Germany back in March 2016.
He is likely to feature in tonight’s final warm-up match against Costa Rica at Leeds, where he started his professional career as a teenager.
Rose added: “I think I’m the luckiest player to be in the squad.
“That’s not down to ability but the number of minutes I’ve had on the pitch and the year I’ve had. I thought the World Cup would be taken away from me but, fortunately, I have a strong relationship with the physio here, Steve Kemp.
“I texted him every now and then asking, ‘Do you think I’ll be in the squad?’ And he would tell me he didn’t know and to concentrate on getting fit.
“I did some of my rehab here with him and I used to badger him for info. But he couldn’t tell me anything and I was genuinely worried.
“After the March international break, when Spurs played Stoke, I played well and we had a lot of games coming up where the full-backs would have got rotated and I’d have played quite a few more games.
RACISM FEAR Rose reveals heartache at telling his dad not to travel to Word Cup
“Then I missed three or four weeks with a calf injury and I was panicking.
“But I managed to squeeze in two or three games at the end and I think that helped me.
“Had I been in Ryan’s shoes and I missed out, I would have been very angry. So I know I’ve been very lucky and I’m going to do everything I can to repay the manager.
“He’s based up here at St George’s Park quite a lot so I would bump into him during my rehab and I would occasionally have dinner with him.
“Even away from here, I’ve had the odd text message or phone call. He’s one of the nicest men I’ve come across in football.”