{"id":295549,"date":"2023-11-18T19:24:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-18T19:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/?p=295549"},"modified":"2023-11-18T19:24:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-18T19:24:10","slug":"cheltenham-boss-darrell-clarke-reflects-on-the-loss-of-his-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/soccer\/cheltenham-boss-darrell-clarke-reflects-on-the-loss-of-his-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheltenham boss Darrell Clarke reflects on the loss of his daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Cheltenham boss Darrell Clarke reflects on the loss of his daughter, aged just 18, as he insists he wants her story to be an inspiration for others facing mental health struggles<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Cheltenham manager Darrell Clarke&#8217;s daughter passed away aged just 18<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><span>45-year-old detailed the grief he suffered in the aftermath of Ellie&#8217;s death<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Clarke added he wants to inspire those struggling with their mental health<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The phone call still haunts Darrell Clarke and he knows it always will. It was Valentine\u2019s Day and Clarke sat at home with a glass of wine when his mobile rang and the voice at the other end of the line told him his 18-year-old daughter Ellie was dead.<\/p>\n<p>A stillness fills Clarke\u2019s small office at Cheltenham\u2019s training ground as he relives the call from Ellie\u2019s stepdad and the moment his life shattered.<\/p>\n<p>Ellie\u2019s body was found hanged at her boyfriend\u2019s flat in Mansfield. The couple had argued, he asked her to leave and Ellie took her own life.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I walked around the kitchen all night screaming,\u2019 says Clarke.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Her mum said she\u2019d been a bit down but I was like \u201cShe\u2019s a teenager, I\u2019ll take her out Christmas shopping in Manchester\u201d. That\u2019s what we did for two days. \u201cGet what you want, El,\u201d I said. She was happy as Larry. We were laughing and joking. It was mad to think about how\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/17\/77967389-12765555-image-a-1_1700328350209.jpg\" height=\"436\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Cheltenham boss Darrell Clarke has reflected on the death of his daughter Ellie last year<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/17\/77966473-12765555-image-a-2_1700328359165.jpg\" height=\"415\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Clarke was in charge of then-League Two side Port Vale when he learned of Ellie&#8217;s passing<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke\u2019s voice trails off.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018That kills me. The thing that hurts me the most is that Ellie loved me so much she didn\u2019t want me to share the pain of her last six months.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Ellie contacted mental health services three times in 2021 and was on antidepressants prescribed by her doctor. She was due to start one-to-one psychotherapy before her death in February last year.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke knew none of this until the inquest. \u2018The story is frightening,\u2019 he says. \u2018She wasn\u2019t that sort of girl, Ellie. Trust me.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Clarke told the inquest his daughter\u2019s voice wasn\u2019t heard. He believes she was let down by mental health authorities. Nottinghamshire NHS worked with charity Mind, who Clarke claims were still trying to contact Ellie six months after her death. It\u2019s wrong, he says, that he was left unaware of his daughter\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn\u2019t agree with the verdict of suicide. \u2018It was a cry for help that went wrong in my opinion,\u2019 he says. \u2018One that ripped the family apart.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>This is the first time Clarke has spoken publicly about Ellie\u2019s death. It\u2019s been 21 months but, finally, he feels ready. For the first 18 months, grief sent his life off the rails. By his own admission, he caused \u2018carnage\u2019. He rebelled against everything. He was, as he calls it, a \u2018s***house\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>He knows he should have taken a break before he did. He was Port Vale manager at the time of Ellie\u2019s death and returned to the dugout after just a three-month leave to seal promotion to League One through the play-offs. Only when he left Port Vale in April did he take the break he needed. He went on five holidays in five months before taking the job at goal-shy Cheltenham in September, a club that went its first 11 League One games without a goal. Since his arrival, he\u2019s won two, drawn two and lost two, a run that saw him nominated for the November manager of the month.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about Ellie is not just about his own grief. It\u2019s about helping those around him. His other daughter, Katie, who\u2019s now 15. Ellie\u2019s brother Thomas, her step-brother Shay, Darrell\u2019s wife Vikki, from whom he\u2019s now separated. His players, who he wants to turn \u2018from young footballers into men\u2019. And those who have been through similar tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke found out an 11-year-old in the Cheltenham academy had just lost his 15-year-old sister so he invited his mum into his office to let her know the family isn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018If I can make a difference by getting out of bed in the morning and trying to reach as high as I can, hopefully that can give others (inspiration). If one family, one person, can look at me and say \u201cwe can get out of bed\u201d. There\u2019s always reasons to get out of bed. Can you find that reason when life is really tough? And it is tough. Mental health is massive. The youngsters of today, my god it\u2019s hard for them. To live up to their Tik Toks, to life online that is so false.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/18\/77968937-12765555-image-a-3_1700331866701.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Port Vale players show their support for Clarke before their clash with Rochdale in 2022<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/16\/77966431-0-image-a-2_1700325716006.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>After taking a leave of absence following the bereavement, Clarke returned to lead Port Vale to the League Two play-off final<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/16\/77966637-0-image-a-8_1700326193579.jpg\" height=\"424\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Before his side walked out at Wembley, Clarke played his team a song that had been played at Ellie&#8217;s funeral<\/p>\n<p>Clarke returned to the Port Vale dugout for the final game of the regular season at Exeter in May where a win would secure their place in the play-offs.<\/p>\n<p>For three hours, Clarke sobbed in his hotel room. Robbie Williams, the singer and Port Vale fan, sent him a video message: \u2018To get out of bed after what you\u2019ve been through, you\u2019re a winner in my eyes.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Vale beat Exeter 1-0 to reach the play-offs. They edged past Swindon in the semi-finals, winning a narrow penalty shootout in which Vale missed two of their first three spot-kicks.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018When I went to bed, I said to Ellie: \u201cStop taking the piss and make the final a bit easier for me!\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n<p>He still speaks to her now. \u2018Sometimes I can hear her say \u201csort yourself out, Dad\u201d if there\u2019s a day where I\u2019m feeling a bit sorry for myself. She gives me a little slap.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Whenever he sees a magpie, he calls it Ellie. \u2018There\u2019s Ellie,\u2019 I say. \u2018If there\u2019s two, there\u2019s Ellie with her friend.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Ellie loved animals. Clarke laughs as he recalls the time Ellie phoned him in a panic after she dropped the box of cockroaches she\u2019d bought to feed her pet bearded dragon and sent insects flying everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019d applied to study veterinary nursing at Nottingham Trent University. At the inquest, her mum told the court Ellie checked her emails every day \u2018for the future she was excited for\u2019. A future that never came.<\/p>\n<p>Ellie did make the play-off final easier, if only on the pitch. Vale, as if by fate, faced Mansfield in the final. Clarke\u2019s former club, his hometown, the place where Ellie was born, lived and died.<\/p>\n<p>Before the team walked out at Wembley, Clarke played a few lines of the Ellie Goulding song that accompanied his daughter\u2019s funeral.<\/p>\n<p><span>How long will I love you? As long as stars are above you. And longer if I can.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u2018I stopped it and said \u201cLads, I buried my daughter to that. This game\u2019s not life or death. I\u2019m so proud of you boys, so proud of how you\u2019ve gone about this. We\u2019ve already won. Just go out there and enjoy it\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Port Vale won 3-0. On eight minutes, the number Clarke wore as a player at Mansfield, all 37,000 fans at Wembley rose in tribute to applaud him.<\/p>\n<p>Thirty of his ex-players went to Ellie\u2019s funeral, including Luton Town captain Tom Lockyer, who Clarke managed at Bristol Rovers.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke says he\u2019s been \u2018brought up by grief\u2019. His mum died in a car crash when he was two, on his gran\u2019s birthday, while his father was an alcoholic who waved insurance money from his mum\u2019s death in his face. Clarke and his brother Wayne were raised on a Mansfield council estate by his gran Sheila \u2013 \u2018she was a rock\u2019 \u2013 and his grandfather, Dave, who worked as a turnstiles steward at the Stags.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke thanks the League Managers Association for their \u2018outstanding\u2019 support. They helped him find the right counsellor, who\u2019s provided vital help. Also his new partner Rebecca, for the support she\u2019s shown him.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Most of the boxes I\u2019ve had in my life I\u2019ve been able to let them float away,\u2019 says Clarke. \u2018But Ellie\u2019s box is always around me. I\u2019ll always have my own guilt and my own feelings on all sorts of things. I\u2019ll always have that round my feet.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/16\/77966435-0-image-a-6_1700325754773.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Goals from Kian Harratt, James Wilson (pictured) and Mal Benning secured a 3-0 win for Vale<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/18\/77968545-12765555-image-a-10_1700330613935.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>On a jubilant day for the club, on the eighth minute fans at Wembley rose to applause Clarke<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/16\/77966395-0-image-a-4_1700325728662.jpg\" height=\"414\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Despite his achievement, Clarke questioned whether he was being treated differently following his return due to his daughter&#8217;s untimely death<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I feel like I could never give enough to my daughter. I\u2019ve given so much to my job over the years. Then you start thinking: what if I was there more? I saw plenty of her, I spoke to her every day. We\u2019d go on holidays every year. My home was in Southampton but the girls all had their rooms there. I couldn\u2019t be there anymore. I couldn\u2019t walk past Ellie\u2019s room.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>He struggles to go back to Mansfield now. Ellie, his mum and his gran, who died about five years ago, are all buried in a cemetery there. He visited a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It\u2019s f***ing hard,\u2019 he says. \u2018It kills me for days. I\u2019m sat at my daughter\u2019s grave, she\u2019s here and mum and gran are over there in a double. The whammy of it just hits me too hard.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>And yet for someone whose life has been so shaped by grief, Clarke exudes the air of a man determined not to let loss define him.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018My gran always said there is always somebody worse off than you,\u2019 says Clarke. \u2018There\u2019s no truer word is there? I can lose my daughter through a cry for help \u2013 but there can be someone who lost their whole family in a car accident.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>There were times at the end of his spell at Port Vale when he felt people tip-toed around him. If he stormed off after a game, was it because his daughter died? If he went for dinner on his own, was it because his daughter died?<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I just want to be treated normal,\u2019 he says. \u2018I don\u2019t want to be treated as the football manager who lost his daughter.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>In the three hours spent in his office, there\u2019s more than just silence and sorrow. Clarke\u2019s loud, he\u2019s boisterous, he\u2019s honest. What you see is what you get. There\u2019s laughter, there\u2019s stories, there\u2019s lots of swearing.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke re-enacts one of his favourite team talks, hunched over, hobbling around the room cradling an imaginary pair of gigantic testicles. He recalls Neil Warnock refereeing a behind-closed-doors friendly against Clarke\u2019s Bristol Rovers team shouting at his own Cardiff players to \u2018shut the f**k up, that\u2019s not a free-kick!\u2019 How at Port Vale, they called themselves Port Vile. The time one of his players chased him down the corridor when he told him he\u2019d not been selected.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, it was football that pulled him back. But why now, why Cheltenham, why a team that was rock bottom of League One without a goal to their name?<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I just missed it,\u2019 he says. \u2018It\u2019s a drug, it\u2019s an addiction to want to be on the grass, to work with your players. How long do you wait? I just missed out on a top League One job but this excited me as well, in a different way. It will feel just as good as a promotion if we can stay up this year. Trying to create history.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>This is Cheltenham\u2019s third successive season in League One. They have never made it four in a row. He thinks they\u2019ll need 15 wins to stay up. He\u2019s already got two.<\/p>\n<p>He wants to make Katie proud. That\u2019s his purpose now. He wants, eventually, to win promotions from each division and to reach 1,000 games as a manager. He\u2019s won five promotions so far, and all four of his play-off campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I couldn\u2019t ever see myself coming out of football,\u2019 he says. \u2018I think the day you lose that hunger and desire, you\u2019re being a fraud.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/18\/18\/77966409-12765555-The_45_year_old_has_since_taken_charge_of_Cheltenham_and_is_keen-a-2_1700331128892.jpg\" height=\"470\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The 45-year-old has since taken charge of Cheltenham and is keen to leave a legacy in football<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s lots of them in football, he says. \u2018Nodding dogs, I call them. Players who come in and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, but don\u2019t lead by example. I don\u2019t mind anyone with a quiet personality but when you haven\u2019t got personality on the pitch, you\u2019re f****d.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, after more stories and more memories, Clarke picks up his phone. \u2018Right, guys, I\u2019ve got to speak to my councillor. I really enjoyed that.\u2019 Our time is up.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I want to leave a good legacy,\u2019 he says. \u2018Ellie was so proud of me and I want to do more. I don\u2019t want to be that victim of life. My gran never lived her life a victim. My gran never gave up so why should I \u2013 I want to achieve more than I\u2019ve ever wanted to achieve.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><span>For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See www.samaritans.org for details.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off\u00a0is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football, launching with a preview show today and every week this season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube , Apple Music and Spotify<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12765555\/Cheltenham-boss-Darrell-Clarke-loss-daughter-mental-health.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Cheltenham boss Darrell Clarke reflects on the loss of his daughter, aged just 18, as he insists he wants her story to be an inspiration <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sportstoft.com\/soccer\/cheltenham-boss-darrell-clarke-reflects-on-the-loss-of-his-daughter\/\" title=\"Cheltenham boss Darrell Clarke reflects on the loss of his daughter\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-295549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.1 - 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