BY ROSS HEPPENSTALL
“WHEN IT comes to suicide, I could never do it but I’ve planned it many times,” says Keith Senior with remarkable frankness.
“I would be riding my motorbike and think to myself ‘I wonder what would happen if I put my full steering lock on one side’.
“It’s a stupid thing to do because it would end badly but they were the processes that went through my mind.
“I could be at the top of a building and would think ‘I wonder what would happen if I jumped off there’.
“Again, I’d never do it but when I was at my lowest point I certainly thought about it a lot and planned how I would do it.
“Nobody knew what I was going through. I’m quite a closed book, I don’t let people get to know me very well, and I’ll probably always be like that.”
Senior is reflecting on hitting rock bottom following his enforced retirement from rugby league in 2011.
Then 35 and one of the finest centres in Super League history, Senior wanted to play on for another season at least.
There was talk he could move into the pack.
But he suffered a serious ACL knee injury when playing for Leeds in a Challenge Cup victory over Harlequins at Headingley on May 20, 2011.
It finished him as a rugby league player and, by his own admission, led to him going off the rails.
“I use to go to Scammonden Dam and sit at the top in my car for 12 to 14 hours, just watching the world go by,” Senior tells rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads.
“I had bought the pipes and was going to do it in my car with the exhaust fumes.
“This was in the first two years after my career ended.
“They say that the most pain-free and common way of killing yourself is by jumping in front of a train.
“It just totally smashes your body and you die instantly.
“Being the weird and inquisitive person I am, I thought ‘I wonder what would happen?’
“But although I used to think about it, I still don’t believe I would ever have done it.”
Next month will mark nine years since Senior was cruelly struck down by that career-ending injury.
He had played for Sheffield Eagles, the club he now serves as assistant coach, in the original season of Super League in 1996, helping them to a famous Wembley win over Wigan in 1998.
Senior was reunited with Gary Hetherington when he moved to Headingley in 1999 and established himself as a star of world-class repute.
Senior was a key figure in the Leeds side who won the club’s first championship in 32 years in 2004, one of four Grand Final wins he enjoyed with the Rhinos.
The popular, hard-running three-quarter also lifted the Challenge Cup once and the World Club Challenge twice in addition to earning 43 international caps.
He made 365 appearances for Leeds, scoring 171 tries, and made the Super League Dream Team five times, but the injury sustained in May 2011 proved devastating.
The 44-year-old Yorkshireman explains: “When I retired, it wasn’t on my terms and that’s what always makes it more difficult.
“I still felt good enough physically and was still playing well enough performance-wise.
“You sometimes get in a mindset with injuries, and I didn’t get many, where you would play through the pain and have an operation at the end of the season so I didn’t miss many games.
“I did my knee on May 20, 2011 with a ruptured disc ACL and had the operation a week after.
“Brian McDermott had already told me that he wasn’t sure if he was going to keep me for the year after.
“That was before I got injured, so as soon as I did my ACL I knew I was leaving.”
Senior’s injury was complicated further by contracting the MRSA Super bug which saw him undergo a staggering 12 operations in 10 months, all to no avail.
He had been offered a contract by the Welsh club, Crusaders, as a last hurrah.
But Crusaders went bust and Senior was left on the rugby league scrapheap.
Senior remembers: “Once I got the MRSA, it was a long, drawn-out affair and a surgeon could never give me any answers.
“I was in limbo in dealing with an injury and the stresses of it.
“I wanted to come back and still believed I could come back and carry on playing.
“That was my mindset, but then with the infection I had 12 operations in 10 months.
“After the last operation, the surgeon basically said ‘I don’t know what’s wrong, you’re just going to have to retire’.
“Thinking about the future during that period of time when I was injured, at one point I was totally wasting away.
“It was a really bad infection and dealing with that and the injury, to then suddenly be told I couldn’t play again hit me like a tonne of bricks.
“I was 35 and left school with no qualifications, so what am I going to do?
“I never wanted to become a professional rugby league player – I played rugby union before joining Sheffield Eagles – and wasn’t one of those kids like Kevin Sinfield who from the age of nine years old always wanted to make it.
“I didn’t and I didn’t think I was ever good enough.
“When I got the opportunity, it changed my mindset.
“If I hadn’t made it in rugby I probably would have ended up being an HGV mechanic.
“Coming to terms with the end of my rugby league career was difficult and my mum is a manic depressive schizophrenic.
“A change of circumstances can bring on depression and that was the massive life-changing incident that happened in my life.
“When you’ve been playing and in the public eye all your career, to then thinking ‘I don’t know what to do with myself’, I just feel worthless.
“I felt I had wasted my life because I didn’t see a future and what I was going to do or could do.
“It was a massive problem and I didn’t see any positives out of it.
“It was like leaving school and starting again, but being 35 years old when everyone else’s careers have taken off.
“I just felt my life had come to a standstill. I felt shit.”
Senior became a legendary figure during his long spell at Leeds.
To South Standers who used to chant his name, he remains iconic.
Yet he struggled to come to terms with the manner of his departure, saying: “Towards the end of the year, we had a farewell dinner for the players who were leaving Leeds.
“There were books going around where your team-mates can write a memory of their time playing with you as a keepsake and a farewell present.
“Ali Lauti’iti and one or two other players who were leaving had one but there wasn’t one for me and I couldn’t understand that.
“I actually never spoke about it until earlier this year – I’d kept it locked in for years.
“That made it ten times worse than what it was and I had made myself a very bitter person because of it.
“Leeds did a tribute video for me at the final game of that season and I’ve been back quite a few times and stood in the South Stand.
“Don’t get me wrong, I did get recognised by the club but in my head I made it worse than what it was because of what I had gone through the injury.
“Leeds have always been good to me, as they are with all ex-players, but those farewell books were something from the players I can never get back.”
Senior’s departure from the Rhinos sent him on a downward spiral.
After a relationship ended, he moved out of the family home and in with former Leeds teammate Luke Ambler in Halifax.
Ambler went on to set up the highly-acclaimed Andy’s Man Club, a support group for men to talk about their problems.
Ambler’s brother-in-law, 23-year-old Andy Roberts, committed suicide in April 2016.
Senior says: “Moving in with Luke was quite apt when you consider everything he went on to do.
“That’s how Andy’s Man Club came about because Ambler, myself and a few other mates used to go for breakfast on a Saturday.
“It was nothing specific or labelled as anything; it was just a case of meeting up and having a crack with the lads.
“He’s a very likeable character, Ambler, and he has finally settled into something he enjoys doing.
“He was a bit of a Del Boy back when I lived with him, a jack of all trades, and would have a dabble at setting up various businesses.
“I think he’s really found his forte with his public speaking and the charity work he does through Andy’s Man Club.
“He’s done really well and again it has come from terrible circumstances.
“Luke’s brother-in-law’s suicide fuelled his desire to inspire and motivate others.
“But when we lived together I was bored and had nothing to do.
“Ambler would be out at work and I was in somebody else’s house with no job.
“I was going to the gym a lot, just to fill the time, and then I just started going out at weekends and it just escalated and escalated.
“I don’t often drink, I don’t like alcohol and I will drink to be sociable when I go out and we have reunions.
“But I ended up doing some stupid things and I put it down to boredom.
“You look back at what you did and try and rationalise it, and justify, but then it’s an excuse.
“It was just to fill the void and feel good in myself – go out and have a laugh.
“But then it gets to the stage where you are binge-drinking and it’s out of hand.
“I was acting like a kid again and remember going out one night and getting back to Luke’s house and losing my shit.
“I went absolutely mental, ran into a wall in his house and putting a massive hole in the plaster.”
Senior even made cries for help on Twitter.
“For two years after my injury, I had a really shit time,” he says.
“I was dealing with an injury, an infection, and I wasn’t living at home and I didn’t have a job.”
Senior, who grew up with his parents and brother in Huddersfield and had a normal upbringing, had previously used rugby league as an antidote to any personal problems.
He reasons: “I wouldn’t have had the life I have had were it not for rugby league.
“I remember speaking to Gareth Ellis about this. We travelled the world, won a lot of trophies and earned good money by doing rugby league, our hobby, as a job.
“Therefore what gives us the right to be depressed when it has ended?
“You can’t understand that until you have experienced it.
“If you played rugby as a kid then I have done what you wanted to do.
“But if I turn around and say ‘I’m depressed’ then what gives me the right to do that because I have had the best life in the world and been to so many places?
“When I went to Paris with Sheffield for the first game of Super League, I had only ever been abroad once before.
“My holidays as a kid involved going to Hull, where my grandma had a caravan park.
“Then all of a sudden I was going to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea and had a great life.
“I have had a few separations from partners and stuff like that but I had rugby as a coping mechanism.
“I could deal with anything because I knew I could switch off and play a game.
“That was it – that was how I dealt with things.
“When that stopped, I didn’t have that coping mechanism anymore. But I still wanted to run away from problems.”
In August 2013, Senior’s life changed for the better.
He met his current partner, Emily Colbourne, with whom he has a three-year-old daughter, Jessica.
Senior has also rebuilt his relationship with 20-year-old Saskia, his elder daughter from a previous relationship.
Senior says with a smile: “Emily is great and really understanding because I’m still a dickhead at times!
“I still do stupid things but understanding it is the biggest issue for me.
“Emily is very understanding and supportive because I’m a complex character.
“After Saskia’s mother and I separated, I missed out on a lot of Saskia’s life.
“They say you shouldn’t go through life with regrets because it’s all an education and learning process.
“That doesn’t alter the fact I wasn’t the greatest of dads to Saskia because I wasn’t there.
“When the separation happened, I didn’t see her for three to four years and that’s a massive chunk of my life.
“It’s something I am pissed off with myself about.
“With Jessica, I still feel a bit guilty because I’m a very fortunate position where I get to spend a lot of time with her, especially during this lockdown.
“I never had that with Saskia, so there is still that guilt factor.
“Life is always going to be a bit of a challenge for me because I’ll always have to justify everything; dealing with the fact I missed out on Saskia and then spending so much time with Jessica.
“It’s something I can’t change but I can at least try and make up for it now.
“Saskia’s mother brought her up but she’s moved out and got her own place and job now, which is great.”
In addition to meeting Emily, Senior gradually reinvented himself in the so-called real world of work.
He enjoyed stints with the Leeds Rugby Foundation and Rugby AM but it is his two current roles which have proved the most inspiring.
Senior has served as Mark Aston’s assistant at Sheffield for just over five years and in January 2018 he came on board at Rugby League Cares as a player support officer.
Few know better than Senior the challenges facing rugby league players, especially in the current climate of uncertainty, and he is not afraid to talk about the problems he has faced and battled to overcome.
Senior says: “My role at Rugby League Cares gives me a little sense of purpose.
“I can understand when people say that they have been through turmoil.
“People have always had mental health problems and always will.
“I don’t like to call it mental health; I prefer to call it going through difficulties.
“I don’t class what I went through as mental health. I was just going through a bad time and I made it worse myself.
“Everyone goes through stuff and my mother is on medication for the rest of her life.
“She can’t control what she thinks without her medication whereas I was going through a tough time like everybody does.
“If you lose your job, you suffer stress and anxiety and it’s classed as mental health.
“But it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. It’s how you perceive it and what your coping mechanisms are.
“My coping mechanism was to go off the rails and be a dickhead.
“With my charity work, it’s about finding the right coping mechanisms and understanding everything a little bit more.
“It has given me a lot more insight into myself. I’ve always said I’m a messed up person and a messed up bloke – and probably always will be.
“Understanding yourself is a big challenge and is something I’ll be going through for a very long time.
“I’ve probably read more books since I retired than I had in the previous 35 years.
“I’ve educated myself and done courses in strength and conditioning and suicide prevention.
“I get inspired more now when I read about other people’s lives and that inspires me to better myself.
“I’ve been reading David Goggins’ book about being a Navy Seal and I can relate to what he talks about a lot – putting yourself in a difficult position but being comfortable with it.
“That’s what rugby is about – playing a game of rugby you get in some horrible situations but the better players are comfortable with it.”
Senior, who remains an impressive physical specimen, carries out regular fundraising work for charities such as the Jane Tomlinson Appeal, Yorkshire Cancer Research and the Steve Prescott Foundation.
He does charity bike rides and has completed the London Marathon, even though it leaves him physically broken.
Combining his role at Rugby League Cares with his job at Sheffield is a challenge, particularly with a young daughter to care for.
Senior says: “With Steve McCormack coming in to Rugby League Cares, he’s taken over the main brunt of it all.
“But once we get past this lockdown, I think my role will be changing a little where I might be working a bit closer with him and getting a lot more hands on because Jessica will be going to nursery.
“We’re looking at setting up a peer mentoring scheme.
“When players have problems, straight away it’s like ‘let’s get you into Sporting Chance’.
“But sometimes people just need to talk and understand what the situation is.
“There are a lot of players who go through problems and it opens your eyes when you are actually in that circle.
“Because of the work that Rugby League Cares does, and everything is confidential, nobody ever knows.
“That’s why it’s such important work for a charity.
“But it’s also a charity for very highly-paid sportsmen who have been in a very privileged position. It’s always hard to raise money for that reason.
“We can’t actually disclose the work we do, so it’s a very difficult charity to promote.
“It’s a very macho sport, rugby league, and you don’t necessarily want people to know that you are going through problems, whether it be a sense of embarrassment or failure.
“They are personal issues and you don’t want the world to know.
“It’s a little bit of therapy for me.
“Speaking one on one to people is difficult because they know you and can judge you whereas speaking to a room full of people who don’t know you is easier.
“Everybody goes through problems; it’s just how you dealt with them.
“My problems weren’t actually that big and and I dealt with them in the wrong way, but I didn’t know how to deal with them. Now I’m far better at it.”
Senior enjoys his role under Aston at the Eagles and has ambitions to coach at the highest level.
Last year’s 1895 Cup final win over Widnes at Wembley evoked memories of Sheffield’s Challenge Cup final victory over Wigan over two decades earlier.
Senior says: “I love the Rugby League Cares work and my role at Sheffield Eagles but there will come a time when I need to make a decision because my family needs to take a priority.
“Championship rugby is tougher than Super League with the commitments it involves.
“It’s ruthless industry when you look what happened to Dave Furner at Leeds.
“He had a three-year contract but got sacked after a few months.
“I still have that desire to challenge myself as a coach. I’ve been an assistant with Mark for a long time now and I’m at the stage where I need to challenge myself.
“Being an assistant coach isn’t what I perceive myself as going forward.
“There aren’t many good jobs out there, that’s the problem.
“In the Championship you’re working on a shoestring and then you’ve got to ask ‘where are the players coming from?’
“There is not an influx of amateur players coming through the system and the Championship is a dogfight with a lot of it is the same players doing the rounds at different club.
“It’s about finding the right blend of lads who want to play together and fight for each other, not just go through the motions.”
Earlier this year, Senior and fellow Leeds legends played in a match against Bradford Bulls to raise funds for Rob Burrow and Jamie Jones-Buchanan.
For Senior, who lay on the same Headingley turf in despair in his final act as a rugby league player, it went deeper than merely paying tribute to Burrow and Jones-Buchanan.
“As much of a great occasion as it was, albeit in terrible circumstances for what Rob is going through, I got to run out in front of a packed Headingley and say goodbye to the fans,” says Senior of an emotionally fraught afternoon.
“It was sort of me putting through a bit of shit I was going through to bed; like closing a book.
“What Rob is going through has put my troubles into perspective but whatever shit you’re going through, it’s always 10 times worse when it happens to yourself.
“If you stub your toe, it’ll hurt me ten times more than if you stub your toe.
“The mind is a very strange thing and at times you just need to put things in perspective.
“Rob is not in the most fortunate of positions, to say the very least, but his outlook on life and the way he is going about thing is inspirational.
“He still has that same positivity and love for life with his kids and family.
“Sometimes you just need to give your head a shake and realise that things could always be worse.
“I’m still finding myself and I don’t know if I ever will find myself.
“I can’t replicate what I’ve done and I suppose because it ended badly, I don’t miss rugby.
“I knew who Keith Senior was, the rugby player. Now I don’t know what I am or what my purpose is still.
“I fill the void by doing a lot of charity work to get a buzz because I can’t play the games any more.
“I’m never going to play in front of 80,000 fans at Wembley or Old Trafford again.
“That’s gone and is something I can never get back.
“I like doing the London Marathon and charity bike rides and getting involved as much as I can in that aspect of it.
“I don’t know if I ever will be able to fill that void, but with everything I have going in my life right now, I’m content and happy.
“Despite what I’ve been through, I’ve never really got any counselling and I had a conversation with our priest at Sheffield the other week.
“He rang up for a general chit-chat and that opened up a few home truths about my childhood.
“He pointed out the fact it could help me. I’m one of those people who think whatever my problem is, it’s an excuse.
“If I do something stupid, and I say it’s because of something that happened as a child, it’s an excuse, which isn’t very helpful.
“The priest pointed out a few home truths and instances where actually talking to a counsellor might be very beneficial.
“It’s something I might look at doing, just to help me understand a little bit more why I have those issues.
“With the role I have at Rugby League Cares, it can only be beneficial. I see it as a way to educate myself about me but other things as well.”
