Alastair Campbell: Boycott out-of-date on depression

Two blunt Yorkshiremen have come to (online) blows, with Alastair Campbell attacking the former cricketer and now commentator Geoffrey Boycott for his comments about Michael Yardy, the player who left England's World Cup squad this week because he was suffering from depression.
 
Boycott's thoughts on Yardy's mental illness have generally been labeled crass and have angered charities and medical experts specialising in depression.

The trouble began when Boycott, speaking from India, was asked on radio yesterday for his reaction to the news that the 30-year-old Yardy was leaving the squad and travelling home because of his depression.

In a nutshell, Boycott responded that he wasn't surprised Yardy was depressed. "He must have been reading my comments about his bowling – it must have upset him," said Boycott, who has been critical of Yardy's performance throughout the tournament.

"Obviously it was too much for him at this level. If any blame is attached it's partly to the selectors because I'm sorry, he's not good enough at this level."
 
About the only thing Boycott got right was when he added: "I'm not a medical man... Until you've had depression, I don't think you're qualified to talk about it."
 
Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor also known for wearing his Yorkshire heritage on his sleeve, admitted in a blog last night that Boycott, now 70, had always been his childhood sporting hero. Such was his adoration for Yorkshire County's inspirational opening batsmen that Campbell once created a Geoffrey Boycott fan club.

But, said Campbell, these latest comments were reprehensible.  
 
"I had a drink with him [Boycott] in a Manchester hotel where I was speaking, and he was staying for the Old Trafford Test a few years ago, when he was recovering from treatment for cancer," Campbell recalled.

"How would he have felt if I had suggested to him that his cancer had resulted from poor performance as a sportsman or sports commentator? He'd have been non-plussed I expect. Yet that is what he is saying of Yardy, that poor form and criticism by his betters had made him depressed.
 
"I'm afraid that is not how it works," said Campbell, who himself suffered a nervous breakdown in the 1980s and has suffered from depression many times. "For depressives, depression just is, the same as for cancer sufferers, cancer just is, and if you catch a cold, you just do".
 
He concluded: "I will always put 'Sir Geoffrey' in my list of all-time great players. But his attitudes to mental illness could do with joining the century he commentates in, not the century he played in." ·