December 14, 2008
It's a serious problem but Shane Webcke doesn't want to describe it as "depression".
"I'm hesitant to use that word," he says. "It gets bandied about society too much. I think I was genuinely upset but I don't think I was depressed either.
"But in saying that, what's depression? I don't know.
"I wasn't myself, put it that way. I never thought 'I'm suffering from depression, I need a tablet or something to help me'. I knew I was feeling a bit weird about the world and I just needed to persevere."
The malaise Webcke describes engulfed him after he hung up the boots. Having spent his entire life thinking, training and playing football, the Brisbane prop didn't know what to do with the rest of his life. One day he was a footballer, with a purpose in life. The next, he was lost.
It was only after talking to other players from his era, like fellow forwards Jason Stevens and Robbie Kearns, that he realised he wasn't the only one struggling with the transition.
"I had no idea what was coming in terms of the jolt it was going to give me," Webcke says of retirement.
"And I was a bloke who was organised. I had jobs to go to but when professional sport has been your life for so long, when it's gone it's quite bizarre.
"If you'd asked the blokes that played with me, I don't think they would have picked me as a bloke who would have struggled in the transition to normal life, as it were.
"But I did it as tough as anyone. It was fairly traumatic. I'm not being a wanker either. I just felt that to put something on record, it might be a help to someone else."
So just two years after penning his first book, Warhorse, Webcke is at it again. But rather than pen just another autobiography, the former Kangaroos prop gives a no-holds-barred insight into the modern game. Nothing is off-limits. Brisbane's booze culture. Rugby league officialdom. Wayne Bennett. But the one thing Webcke particularly wanted to convey was how hard it can be adjusting to life after football, in the hope it will prepare other NRL stars for retirement.
"They talk about being institutionalised, people who have been in prison so long - that's what it's like," he says. "I was just shocked by the absence of routine.
"That's what being a professional sportsperson is all about, complete and utter routine. When that's gone, you can't explain it but there's something missing and it's a massive hole in you. I didn't know what the problem was. I thought, 'hang on, I have a good job' - I was earning the same sort of money as when I was playing, so that wasn't an issue. Why do I feel so crook?
"Time is the only thing. Time heals all. But you've got to know it's coming."
Webcke, who lost his father in an accident 15 years ago, said his mother gave him some invaluable advice to help deal with upheaval.
"She said the smartest thing she ever did was not make decisions in that terribly emotional state, because you make mistakes," he says.
"I made some mistakes. They weren't things that were critical but some of the things I did weren't very characteristic of me and for a while I was very jittery. I don't think I'd ever been back on my word as many times as I had been during that time.
"I decided something was a good thing and then I didn't want to do it. I was really, really rattled."
Webcke devotes an entire chapter of the book, to be released to coincide with the kick-off of the 2009 season, to the Broncos' booze culture. Specifically, he takes aim at the infamous toilet tryst involving three Broncos stars.
"I have a fairly strong opinion on it and that's coming from a bloke who was never an angel," Webcke says. "Players now, for want of a better description, need to get with the times. They live in a very unfair regimen in many respects because they are so heavily scrutinised.
"Even in my two years out of the game, it has increased tenfold.
"People are getting tired of us saying 'we're just normal young men, stuff like this happens all the time'.
"It does but the scrutiny the game is under now means it's not acceptable for us to do it."