Vincent Kompany was not in a festive mood on Sunday afternoon, despite Anderlecht’s impressive and marked 7-2 victory over KV Mechelen. The head coach comes to the subsequent press conference with the announcement that his assistant Craig Bellamy is leaving the club immediately due to depression. Kompany knew Bellamy from their joint period at Manchester City and after a period in the youth department he ended up in the main force of Anderlecht. However, the collaboration is now coming to a premature end.
Bellamy has often struggled with psychological problems in his life and the former attacker can therefore count on Kompany’s understanding and support. “Craig has been struggling with clinical depression from a young age. He had that beast under control in the past two years, but the monster is back,” an emotional Kompany said at the Anderlecht press meeting on Sunday afternoon. “We have to give him the chance to get healthy again. Craig was a unique trainer for us. He has been very important for Anderlecht in the development of players like Jérémy Doku, Yari Verschaeren, Albert-Mboyo Sambi and so on. But health is always above football. In any case, our door will always be open for him.”
Bellamy, who left Anderlecht, joined in May last year Sky Sports open a book about his depressive moods. “Very few people know this because I’ve never said anything about it openly. But they diagnosed me with depression three or four years ago. I’ve been taking pills for that for three years now. I’ve got ridiculous heights, but sometimes also terrible lows,” it sounded in conversation with Jamie Carragher, whom he knew from their time together at Liverpool.
In that conversation, Bellamy also looked for a cause for his depression. The fact that he moved from Cardiff City to Norwich City at a young age may be a cause, according to the Welshman. “The loneliness and the homesickness were the hardest things I ever had to deal with. There were nights when I cried myself to sleep. You couldn’t talk to anyone about it, because it was only football. The bond with my father was good but we never really talked this out I held him responsible for always having to go back to Norwich He was right it was the best thing for me too but it made me hold a lot of grudge against him I’m actually still there never really recovered from it.”