3 hours ago
1
In the final moments before Saturday’s match, Tyrhys Dolan will pick up his phone and look at the photo of Jeremy Wisten, the best friend for whom he would give it all up. He will touch the No 24 on his shirt, chosen to commemorate the day Jeremy died, aged 18. And then he will head out to where it all comes to him and it all leaves him too. “I feel nervous every game,” Dolan says, “but when I’m walking though the tunnel it’s like it’s all dropping off me, the shackles fall. All the graft, everything you gave to get here, this is it, now you’re free. You have responsibility, but it’s like the playground again.”
Some playground. This is not the Dales Estate, Salford. This time the Santiago Bernabéu awaits. “These are the stadiums any kid dreams of, but it’s not even for me. I’m quite selfless,” Dolan says. “I’ve always got satisfaction from other people’s enjoyment. It’s a moment for everyone around me, friends and family, to be there, to see these places and say: ‘Remember when he was in the park,’ to look back and think: ‘We’ve been through so much, now we’re here.’”
The third of seven siblings, born in Manchester and signed by Espanyol in July, Dolan sits at their training ground in the Barcelona sunshine, talking eloquently about the pathway, the pressure, loss and love, friendship. He thinks about the Manchester City team he joined at seven and left soon after, told he was too small. He thinks about Burnley and City again, whom he rejoined at 13 and where he was cut for a second time. He thinks of Preston, non-League Clitheroe, all the kids who played with him, about Jeremy especially.
Now here he is in Spain. He has come a long way the hard way, acutely aware of those he wishes could have got there with him, and grateful to those at his side. “You can’t imagine how tough it is,” Dolan says. “I was lucky, but 99% aren’t. It’s scary; I think what would I have done if I hadn’t [made it] and I genuinely don’t know. You’re labelled as a footballer. When that’s stripped from you, you think: ‘Who am I?’ I remember taking ‘Man City’ out of my Instagram bio. You feel you’ve lost your identity and without that the world is a scary place. I was lucky I have a real supportive family. Some people have no one, constantly battling their own thoughts.”
Football doesn’t do enough for those who don’t make it, which is almost all of them. In October 2020, two weeks after his birthday, Wisten was found dead in his bedroom at home, the coroner concluding the teenager had killed himself. Released by City after suffering a knee injury, Wisten struggled to find a club. Dolan was broken, his best friend taken from him. A pall-bearer at the funeral, he wrote and read a poem during the service. An ambassador for the mental health charity Go Again, he takes calls, offers support and perspective.
“It shouldn’t take losing someone to see that football needs to take action,” he says. “Jeremy had come to Preston but he didn’t get the scholarship. At the time he got released a lot of his friends, including me, were succeeding. I don’t know the reason and I don’t want to say it’s football, but it must have been so hard for him. You see your friends [playing] and feel: ‘Who am I? Now that I’m not a footballer, what am I?’
“Football is a highlights reel. I’m not posting a picture on Instagram not looking my best; I’m posting when I’m fresh. They think, ‘Oh, he’s blessed’, that football solves everything. They don’t know what’s behind it. There are more dark days than light. I try to help young players understand.”
Even after he reached Blackburn, a first professional contract signed in 2020 having been three months without a team, there were tears. At times, Dolan admits, you wonder where the joy is. Until you get into the tunnel, and on to the pitch, that is. “After the rain, the sun comes. You wouldn’t appreciate the sun without the rain.” There’s a moment’s quiet. “Sometimes you get survivor’s guilt. My friends were at City. Now they go to every game and they buzz off it. They’re like: ‘We’re living the dream through you, Ty.’ It’s bittersweet because you’ve grafted so hard to get there and you just want everyone with you. Maybe I’m the way I am because I lost Jeremy.
“We’re not macho guys and they support me always, they would if I was on the other side of the world. When Espanyol called, they were like: ‘Get your bags packed. We’ll miss you but, click a finger, you need us, we’re there.’ I needed that. There was one thing, though: Jeremy’s cemetery. I go every Sunday. I felt I was leaving him. He would have told me himself: get on the plane and go, this is La Liga. But I was thinking: ‘Who’s going to take flowers? Who’s going to go?’ My boys were like: ‘We’ll cover that, we’ll clean the headstone, we’ll take flowers.’ It brought me to tears. I’m 23, still young, but I needed to take steps. Espanyol was a no-brainer. I don’t know how many have made that step from the Championship.”
There’s a smile. “To be truly honest, that first week training, I thought: ‘Pfff, this is …’” Dolan laughs. “I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want them to worry, but I was like: ‘Am I up to this?’ Genuinely. The standard was … honestly, it was unbelievable. But I love that. It’s a wake-up call: you wanted this, raise your game.”
Introduced as a substitute against Atlético Madrid, Dolan helped Espanyol to a comeback victory on the opening weekend of the season. A starter since, he set up the winner against Osasuna with a flick and provided an assist against Mallorca. Espanyol are third, their best start in 30 years. Fans are calling him Dolandinho or Maradolan. No wonder he’s cracking up.
“It’s crazy. I knew what I could do but this quick?” Dolan says. “Against Osasuna I had been nervous in the first half. I couldn’t explain it. At half-time I thought: ‘I could be coming off here,’ but the manager said – well, he had it translated – ‘Just be yourself’. I thought: ‘He’s right.’ I did that little trick, we scored, everyone was buzzing. That’s a liberation.
after newsletter promotion
“I suit this football. I like to express myself and here they embrace it. You see it in the nicknames and clips. I was saying to my dad: that feeling when you get the ball and you hear the ‘Dmm-dmm-dmm-dmm-dmm’ of seats flipping up, feel the anticipation. People spend their money and time; it’s only right I give them that. I don’t want to just do a pure bunch of skills and not add anything, but I do want to put on a show. I want them to enjoy watching Espanyol, to know that when Ty gets the ball something can happen. After Osasuna, I was sitting on the balcony with my mum and dad, looking at the videos, talking. And I wished that moment could last for ever. But football is relentless, constantly turning another page.”
And so to the Bernabéu, another playground. “I’m the same person I was in the park, the kid my dad made run up hills until I couldn’t breathe,” Dolan says. “I would go home crying and my mum would give me a cuddle. You think of everything you endured, how many miles my dad’s driven, how many tears my mum has wiped off my face. Football is such an emotional game. We’ve had an unbelievable journey. My family and all my friends. The players only got two tickets so my mates have theirs in the Madrid end. It’s all right, they’re not hooligans. This is for them.”
It’s also for Jeremy. “I’d said to my mum: ‘I want my next shirt to be for him’,” Dolan says. “He was born on the ninth [of October] and you’re not going to get the No 9. When we got to Espanyol they said they had 16 and 24 available; 24 is the day he passed away, and my mum’s eyes started filling up. It felt like he was with us. All the numbers you could get, and we got the one we needed.
“He’s always here. I feel him with me, like I’m living this for him as well. Would I trade all my career to have Jeremy back? I would. I put everything into it but some things are bigger. Try to enjoy the journey and if I can take it to the heights, that’s Jeremy’s dream and all my friends’ dreams. That’s probably why I work as hard as I do. It is a responsibility because so many people truly want me to do well and there’s that pressure of ‘What if I don’t?’
“I’ve come to Spain and I love it. Now let’s see where it will take me. And I’m sure he’s proud, man. He’s definitely looking down buzzing, and he’s getting to go to some top stadiums.”
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
