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And in the English Football League (EFL), play-off season is in full swing, complete with all its usual emotional ebbs and flows.

These are the days when reputations are forged or shattered and, while it is enthralling for fans, managers would be forgiven for regarding the whole thing with dread.

Jurgen Klopp’s announcement in January that he would be leaving Liverpool at the end of this season was proof of how draining the job can be.



Bassett’s pulse topped out at 120bpm while his blood pressure peaked at 190 (ideal blood pressure is usually considered to be between 90 and 120) and he developed an irregular heartbeat as the game came to a close.

Reflecting on the experiment now, 79-year-old Bassett says that while there was stress involved in football, it’s far higher in other jobs.

They talk about sacking managers or, ‘You’ve only got another game.’ They don’t care about the stress that they’re putting on the manager and his family and friends.

No one can really disturb you — unless the training ground is on fire.”

The physical and mental effects of stress are inextricably linked, but psychotherapist Gary Bloom believes that needs to be more attention paid to the latter.

“The first-team manager normally has an inordinate amount of power and sway in the club, in a way that the head of a corporate organisation wouldn’t have,” says Bloom, who spent five years working as the sports performance psychotherapist at EFL side Oxford United.

And the lower down you go (down the divisions), the harder it is for football managers, because they haven’t got the money or resources to hire people who can help them.”

At the top level in the game, backroom staff numbers seem larger than ever, but that is only helpful if the manager places enough trust in them to delegate some decisions.

Part of the problem, says Bloom, is a lack of clarity over the role of football manager/head coach: “You know where the boundaries are of your job — how many days, roughly how many hours you work.

“It doesn’t matter what club you manage now, everybody’s expected to have success, even though, financially, you can’t compete with some clubs,” he says.

Dr Sally Harris, general practitioner (GP) at HCA UK at The Wilmslow Hospital, near Manchester, has been working with managers via the LMA for the past six years.

She has seen first-hand the effects of stress on her managers — whether it was seeing one of them confronted by a fellow restaurant-goer in Manchester as he tried to eat a pizza, or watching them ride the wave of emotion on the touchline on television.

“When I watch the highlights on TV, it’s like watching stress evolving in front of me,” Dr Harris says.