The Last Word: Problems of surviving the end game
The cryogenic chamber was set at -150F. A familiar bare-chested figure, wearing two pairs of white gloves, polyester shorts, skin-tight medical socks, clogs and a headband, was doing press-ups and squat thrusts in the centre of the room.
No one at the health club in Home Counties Hertfordshire thought to ask why he put himself through the ordeal three times each week, just as no one sought to question his daily ritual of running on the treadmill with 12kg weights in each hand.
When he heard two professional footballers had broken his 10-minute endurance record in the chamber, he returned, and stayed there for 13 minutes. Nearly 17 years after his final fight, a three-round knockout by Mike Tyson at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Frank Bruno remains a competitor.
He is 51 now, and seeks to fill his days with reminders of the physical purging which once defined him. Retirement from boxing, blighted by severe mental-health issues, has been a glimpse into the heart of darkness.
The black dog of depression savages athletes in decline or in their dotage. The list of victims Ricky Hatton, Marcus Trescothick, Tony Adams, Neil Lennon, Vicky Pendleton, Freddie Flintoff, Kelly Holmes and Ronnie O'Sullivan, to name a random group will grow exponentially.
Jamie Carragher is one of the lucky ones, a warrior king carried out on his shield and into a television studio. Rebecca Adlington, at 23, may be terrifyingly young to enter athletic afterlife, but she has enough cachet in a small sport like swimming to use her Olympic medals as a down-payment on normality.
All athletes are unable to escape who they were. Most are unable to reinvent themselves so they can become who they want to be. Their problems transcend sport and nationalities, but compassion fatigue is setting in. How many of us looked away from the grim, grainy photograph of Paul Gascoigne stealing a last sip at the poisoned chalice of a pint in an airport bar? The generosity of those who got him into the Meadows rehabilitation centre in Phoenix, Arizona is admirable, but his plight is overfamiliar.
If football really cared about the welfare of its former players it would impose a fractional levy on its TV income and divert it into a holistic programme of post-retirement support. Giving back 0.5 per cent of that revenue would realise in excess of 25 million. A similar imposition on parasitic bookmakers would also be principled and profitable.
The PFA, the players' union, produce self-help guides and direct troubled members to 14 organisations, including Anxiety UK, the Depression Alliance and the National Problem Gambling Clinic. It is a start, but ultimately as insubstantial as a Pray for Gazza hashtag.
Footballers' divorce rates in the five years following retirement are thought to be in excess of 60 per cent. There are justifiable fears that the current generation of Premier League players will take an unwitting lead from similarly rewarded athletes in the United States.
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The Last Word: Problems of surviving the end game