'I thought they'd be better off without me' Chris Kamara experienced suicidal thoughts

Chris Kamara has told how he experienced suicidal thoughts while gripped by apraxia, due to the "apparent hopelessness" of his future.

The former footballer-turned-TV star, 65, was diagnosed with apraxia in 2021, which exacerbates balance, strength, dexterity and speech, and he has now told how he turned to animals on his smallholding to cope because they "don't judge".

Former 'Soccer Saturday' star Chris - who is known affectionately as Kammy - also told how he considered "something extreme" as a "way out", and compared his situation with Gary Speed, who tragically took his own life following a battle with depression.

In an excerpt from his new book, 'Kammy', published in the Daily Mirror newspaper, Chris writes: "I’m going to admit something now, something I’ve never mentioned before. It’s hard for me to talk about, so bear with me. As I was gripped by apraxia, and the apparent hopelessness of my future, I’d been escaping more and more down to the animals at the back of the house. Hidden away, that smallholding became my refuge.

"Animals don’t judge. You look after them and in return they show you unconditional love. I would talk to them as I stood there. I’d let all my innermost feelings tumble out.

"I didn’t need to worry about them noticing my slowed speech or my compromised stability. It seems silly to say they ‘listened’, but in those moments that’s how it felt.

"Going down there allowed me to unravel my thoughts. And I’ll be honest, some of those thoughts could be dark. I worried about where I was going to end up. Would my physical and neurological deterioration just keep going and going? And I worried more about the effect it would have on those around me."

The ex-Sheffield United player then admitted he wondered at times if his family would be "better off" without him.

He wrote "And it’s at that point I’d think, ‘They’d be better off without me.’ I thought of Gary Speed and then I thought of my own position - a man in his mid-sixties, whose best days, because of a brain condition, were gone, struggling on while becoming a weight on all around him. Whose wife and children would be left to deal with whatever I became.

"I didn’t want that for Anne and the boys. So how do you prevent it from happening? You take yourself out of the picture. There were times when I definitely thought that was a way out. If you’re stuck in a maze, with no sign of an escape route, eventually you’ll try something extreme. Especially if you have chosen to wander that maze alone.

"And that really is the key. When finally I did start to share my problems, I began to see that the future might not be so bleak. That a world could exist with me in it. Hopefully a me who was better, but nevertheless a version of me who I could live with."