Abstract:

At a time when public interest in mental health is being promoted, this research focusses on a population demographic renowned for physical strength, mental toughness and competitive performance. This research reviews and contributes to literature providing insight into experiences of athletic retirement, offering new perspectives from active, recently retired and management participants with predominantly amateur sporting status. Unlike past research the average age of participants was 36 years 8 months. This new perspective enables novel exploration of ideas and attitudes towards psychological help and interpretation of sporting organisations attitudes toward counselling to support the psychological impact of retirement. Each participant completed an audio recorded semi-structured interview, transcripts where then thematically analysed identifying six themes and multiple sub-themes. Evidence of high athletic identity was summarised in the first theme ‘I’m not me without sport’ followed by an admittance of ‘retirement comes to us all’ in the second theme. ‘But what’s the alternative’ detailed the psychological impact of retirement in theme three while theme four, ‘A helping hand’ offers both an appreciation of the psychological requirements and practical suggestions for retirees. Theme five and six ‘Counselling, others would find that helpful’ and ‘But we’ve got a game to win’ respectively considers attitudes toward counselling as an intervention from both athlete and club perspectives, highlighting the impact of mental health stigma and limited understanding of counselling. How the research compliments current literature and contributes a unique perspective is discussed, with limitations acknowledged and further research recommendations explored. It concludes that as leisure activities compete for public affiliation amateur clubs would benefit from understanding retirees better. Putting programmes in place to raise awareness and increase likelihood of help seeking for psychological difficulties concerning retirement. The potential positive impact of maintaining retiree affiliation thus enabling greater volunteer networks on which amateur clubs survive, is also considered.

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