Former Blues midfield Simon Milton says he knew all wasn’t well with his friend and one-time team-mate Jason Dozzell but didn’t realise the seriousness of his state of mind until the two had lunch last month.
Milton, 56, who these days is the director of the Futurestars charity, says he had been concerned about his former team-mate, as had other friends.
"I knew something was wrong but I didn’t know what,’ he said. "I’m in Ghana a lot so I don’t see as much of Jason as I used to, obviously.
"I knew he wasn’t right and I didn’t know why. It’s a typical man thing where you go, ‘You alright, mate?’, ‘Yeah, I’m fine’, you know what I mean? And then we’d talk about football or Andre or something else.
"But it wasn’t just me, I remember talking to Titus Bramble as well and he said ‘Have you seen Doz?’
"So I came back in October and said let’s go for lunch, let’s have a chat, just expecting to have a chat and say, ‘Come on mate, what’s on your mind?’, that type of thing and everything came out.
"It’s a long, long story, lots of it very personal, lots of it all about himself and then obviously the court case.
"But Jason’s whole story, this court case is a part of it, it’s not all of it. I’ve worried about him as his life revolves around coaching kids and the court case he’s facing kills his livelihood completely.
"I was worried about the weekend after Friday. I looked at him as a person and thought ‘You look totally different from how I’ve ever seen you, you’re more insular, more guarded’.
"And the first time when he started talking to me about it all, he obviously wanted to unload it, but he didn’t really understand the severity of what he was into and all of a sudden I went ‘Oh my God!’.
"And he said, ‘How bad is it?’. I said ‘I don’t think it can get much worse for you right now because of the work that you do and all of a sudden everything is getting on top of you’.
"I said he needed some professional help and that’s what the PFA are there for. Straight away I rang the PFA and they said ‘How can we help? This is what we need to do.’
"I think it’s important that the counselling sessions that he’s had are an ongoing process to turn him around.
"They’re not something that we’re setting up because he had a court date coming up. These are 12-week, 18-week sessions.
"I went to the first session. I sat in the first session because there’s no point in going to a counselling session and not saying anything.
"So he opened up to the guy, the guy was really good. One of the things that came out of it was that he’s not an alcoholic and he’s not a drug addict.
"The counsellor works with alcoholics and drug addicts all the time, but there are certain bad decisions that he’s made in his life when he’s been under the influence of drinking, much more drinking, this is his first instance of drugs.
"That was when it all began to become a bit real and we started to think, ‘What can we do?’. The good thing is the PFA are supporting him, advising on finance as well as mental health, friends and family are supporting him. The football club are supporting him because this is a guy who needs help.
"I’m no expert in mental health issues but I can see when someone needs help, especially if they’re a close friend of mine.
"So that’s been it. And so having come and talked about it a bit more and opened up, he’s a different person in the last two weeks.
"The court case is still coming [at the time] but he’s a different person because whatever happens he’s admitted to everything, he’s not blaming anyone else, he’s full of remorse, he feels he’s let everybody close to him down but he’s ready to move on.
"And he’s already decided to move on. By doing these things now means that he’s already on the road to recovery, no matter what happens at the court.”