Man Utd’s Bennett opens up on family tragedy: I can never feel like I did that day

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“Even if someone’s having the best time of their life and everything’s going well, it’s still worth checking in on them.”

Rhys Bennett is a local lad who led and captained his side to FA Youth Cup success for Manchester United just a few years ago.

But the young defender’s career was brought to an abrupt halt earlier this year when his father, David, tragically took his own life.

Here, speaking to Sky Sports News’ Danyal Khan, the 22-year-old tells his story, opening up on grief and urging others not to struggle alone.

These are his words as he remembers his dad, reflects on managing the feeling of loss and after previous loan spells, considers what’s next in his footballing journey.

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I can never feel like I did that day when I found out.

Managing the feeling of loss

To be honest, being truthful, the first two, three days… I’m not really an emotional person to be honest, but they are the worst feelings I’ve ever had in my life.

Then a week passes, two weeks pass, and you look at it like: I can never feel that bad again. I can never feel like I did that day when I found out.

So everything from there is just like, say that’s down there, well, even if you might be here, at least you’re not down there. So then it gives you that reason to go, ‘no, no, this can’t get the better of me’.

It just gives you more of a purpose and a focus that you can overcome it, because you’ve overcome this and you’ve come out the other end.

You accept that some days you’re going to think about it.

I think to be honest, considering the circumstances, I’m doing okay. I’m cracking on.

I have a lot of positive distractions, not that I disregard it but I’ve got a lot of purpose in my life and I’m lucky to be in the situation that I’m in.

I’m lucky to have the family around me that I do. It’s such a cliché thing to say, but I would not be where I am today without him and my family.

It’s impossible at six, seven, eight years old to drive yourself to training or make certain times and stuff like that. You have to rely on them to get you through that part.

When you’re young, all you want to do is get old. You get to 18 and all you want to do is drive and then you want to do this and that.

I’ve said it before but you have such a different outlook on life when things like this have happened because there’s nothing that can prepare you for it.

But you become more grateful and you become more humble, and stuff that you might have looked down your nose at and thought that’s just part of everyday life, it kind of rises up to your eye level and you think you’ve got to be grateful for what you have.

It has given me a different perspective, but it’s making a situation that is really tough and taking as many positives out of it as I can.

Otherwise you can’t live the rest of your life being negative and so upset about it.

You have to try and be positive and you have to try and give yourself a purpose and a reason to get up every day. To work hard, achieve your dreams and goals that he would want you to do if he was still here.

You’ve just got to crack on.

The importance of speaking up and checking in on others

I think for me, you look at it and you look at the effect that it has on other people, but then you also look at how much people appreciate that person who isn’t there.

That is the simple fact where people don’t realise how appreciated they are and they don’t realise what they do for others and this is the thing, we do take it for granted.

Even if someone’s having the best time of their life and everything’s going well and they might have a business and it’s doing really well, whatever it might be, it’s still checking in on them because you don’t want it to just become a point where it’s like, only when things are going wrong, ‘are you okay?’

You could be having the best time ever, whatever situation it might be, just speaking about it is so powerful.

You don’t realise just having a conversation about how you feel and not having that stigma around it especially with men.

I’ve been in a football environment since I was six years old, I’ve been here since I was eight years old and it’s like you try and put on this brave face and you think that you can’t talk about how you might be feeling but it’s so important, it is so important that you talk about in any walk of life, any workplace, whatever it might be, talking about how you feel, there’s never a problem with that.

I know it will 100 per cent feel like such a big thing and it’d be so difficult to talk and you feel like it’s also that feeling of being past help but you’re never ever past help like if you reach out… there isn’t an age limit on when you can speak up or go to therapy or, you know, make a situation better.

There is no age limit, there is no time limit, there is nobody who could speak to me about how they were feeling and I’d shut it down or I’d disregard it.

Like just speaking up and it could honestly be a two-minute conversation but you don’t realise like how much that might help you.

My dad wouldn’t have known how much he was loved and cared for. I had messages from people… he was working at a tyre place changing tyres, people who’ve met him once saying ‘oh, such a lovely man,’ so on and so forth. You don’t realise you have people that you meet once or people that you meet a million times…

You know, just speaking about how you feel, you know, there’s never, and definitely in my case, there would never be a time that I would shut that down.

What’s next?

The club have been amazing since I’ve come back in.

It’s one of them, I was back in a week after because I think this is my passion and it’s a positive distraction, it’s what I enjoy doing but if I needed to take a month, two months, whatever it might be, there wouldn’t have been a problem.

I’ve been here for so long, it’s like my family and at times you see people at football more than you see your family at home and you’re so close to them.

It was whatever you need to do, however it’s going to look for you, it can look like that and I’m so appreciative for that because like I said there was no pressure on getting back in or having to meet this date or this time, it was whatever you feel like and even if you come back in and you’re not feeling great, dip back out if you need to.

I haven’t because I love my job, it’s a job at the end of the day but it’s what you’ve worked so hard for being a young kid that you can make this your work and I love playing football. And obviously at the minute, you know, I’m injured and that and it is difficult but then it’s looking at other ways you can spend your time and positive distractions.

To be honest I’ve picked up the DJing, so I’m just giving that a go now but yeah because I can’t play padel and stuff (because of his injury).

You look at things with a bit of a different perspective on life…football isn’t my whole identity as much as you love it so much, it’s kind of broadening those horizons and trying to trying to fulfil your life in other ways where I’m not just reliant on if I’m fit and not injured because then, when I do get injured, mentally you can take a bit of a dip because you’re so caught up on needing to get back. And so, just broadening those horizons is what I’ve been trying to do, to be honest.

Hopefully I’ll get back from the injury I’ve got and get out on loan in January.

But I think the thing for me it’s about going forward… there’s always going to be a piece of you missing. Anybody who’s gone through this will know there’ll always be a piece of you missing but you learn to just carry on because you have to.

What I’m saying is just because six months have passed, we’re still going to talk about our feelings and not act like that’s done and that’s behind us. There’s never any time limit on it.

Rhys Bennett was speaking while supporting the Premier League’s Together Against Suicide campaign.

If you need support – please contact Samaritans anytime on 116 123.

This news was originally published on this post .

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