IN DEPTH WITH...Andy Rowland

One of the County Ground’s most revered number nines, the 60-year-old was hospitalised early in 2013, suffering from what was believed to be a form of dementia, before battling back to full health with the assistance of Swindon Mind.

Flash forward just under two years, and Rowland is now a full-blown worker for the organisation.

Going from patient to practitioner, Rowland finds himself offering comfort and advice to all manner of people struggling with their behavioural health at the modern iteration of the same Mind Respite House that offered him solace following his release from the Great Western Hospital (GWH).

The zest with which Swindon’s joint ninth-highest all-time goalscorer, who was also coach, reserve team boss and caretaker manager during his lengthy association with the County Ground club, has thrown himself into his new role as a mental health organisation worker highlights just how much his life has turned around.

Sitting in the current Respite House, in Old Town, a safe haven for the people Mind help treat Rowland said: “I spent four weeks in GWH and about two months over at Sandalwood Court. I spent two weeks in Oak Lodge, which was this kind of building over in Stratton, and that’s where I started to make my recovery.

“I ended up in hospital. I collapsed through alcohol and didn’t know a lot about what happened in that first year.

“To cut a long story short, my road to recovery was helped very much so by the Mind organisation and the people that ran Oak Lodge, which has now been moved over here.

“Whilst I was doing that, I started to show a lot of interest in what these people actually did – what they did for people and what they did for me, on reflection, helped me put my life back on track.

“In that first year, I spent a lot of time learning the trade, mainly because I wanted to give something back to the people that I’d worked with and the people that I’d spent a lot of time with, that really were in a bad place.

“I went from being a patient in the hospital, to being in their care at Oak Lodge, to doing work as a volunteer and then being offered a full-time post as a member of staff.

“We have a drop-in where people come and spend a couple of hours a day with us. We have walking groups, we have needlework groups, we have art groups, we have a cookery group; all very different things and we have something like 250 members of Mind in Swindon and the numbers are increasing.

“There’s no better way to understand somebody who’s got problems than to have actually been there yourself.

“When you come out of it, you think ‘I know what they’re going through’ and to encourage them to try to respond to any suggestions you may have regarding how you go about getting from A to B. These days, I think people tend to listen a bit more.

“They think ‘you’ve been pretty ill in your own time. How did you get out of it?’.”

Andy Rowland, pictured in Town's classic Brazil-inspired change strip

According to Mind, one in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year.

From anxiety to depression, from loneliness to personality disorders; the spectrum of what constitutes mental health is uncompromisingly wide and Rowland, aided by the memories of his own darkest days, knows that there is no hasty remedy.

The Swindon stalwart, treasured by the Town faithful for that famous extra-time winner against a Liam Brady-inspired Arsenal in that 1979 League Cup quarter-final replay, is just happy to help however he can and thriving on the sense of fulfilment.

“Looking back over the last couple of years, 2013 was a really bad year for me but last year was probably one of the best years of my life. I’d seem to come through it all and was now in a position to help them any way I can, whether that be going for a walk with them or just sitting around a table, having a chat and a laugh,” said Rowland.

“You’ve got to have that desire to get better but at the same time, have the courage to face up to whatever situation you’re in. You do need to want to do it.

“There are some people that are never going to be any better than they are but if you can make them better for at least that little part of the day, you can at least think to yourself ‘well, that was worth doing’.

“I love to see people come into this house here, spend a couple of weeks with us, and leave with a smile on their face. And then maybe see them a couple of months later and it’s ‘I’m still fine’.

“It doesn’t happen like that with everybody because every case is different. In the first seven or eight months, I’d met something like 60-odd people and every one of them had a different reason for being there.

“Your anxiety, your stress, your depression; we all go through phases of having those emotions but they’re all there for different reasons, whether it’s family issues, work issues or health issues.

“A lot of it is connected with home life. A lot of it can be connected with learning difficulties. General health can be depressing.

“Something that has been documented a lot on TV is hoarding, which is a problem out there.

“Age can be another thing - it doesn’t matter if you’re 11 or 12 or 60, 70 or 80. There’s no one specific age where you’re going to start feeling not particularly well.

“People who have problems at home, problems with their partners, problems where people have lost a family member; it’s just such a broad spectrum of things that you would never even have considered at one time.

“It’s very difficult to put your finger on one thing. There’s no quick fix and it’s not like you’re going to take a tablet and get better.

“There are issues where you want to get something out of people but you’re not going to be able to fix them like you’d fix a broken leg. People think that they’ll go into a hospital and they’ll get better in two weeks but with mental health problems, you never know when things are going to get right.

“One minute, you can think you’re right but the next minute, you can be back down in the depths of despair again – you just never know.

“I’ve got a friend I see most weekends – I only see for an hour but I see him every week – we just have a chat and a coffee, and I walk away thinking ‘that was good’ if I’ve got a little laugh out of him.

“Sometimes you walk away and think ‘I didn’t get anything out of him’ and that knocks you back a little bit but you have to take a different angle and nine times out of 10 with his person, you think that it’s going alright.

“I loved to take on a challenge when I was playing. I enjoyed my career as a professional footballer and coach at Swindon.

“I’m just learning this job. I would like to think, maybe five years from now, I’ll have gone on and become a lot better than I am now because I am just learning.

“But at least I have got the basic ingredients for knowing what people are feeling. I want to do better at it but at least I’ve made a start and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

Rowland blasts home Swindon’s third goal in the 4-0 win over against Mansfield Town at the County Ground in October 1982

Rowland’s rehabilitation has turned the page on an exciting new chapter in his life and Town’s former goalscoring hero now finally has the chance to convey his gratitude for the vital role the support of the local community played in his recovery.

After news of his plight spread in 2013, thousands of fans at the County Ground paid tribute to the Derby-born striker with a stirring minute-long applause in the ninth minute of Town’s 4-1 win over Crewe Alexandra in April.

A month later, around 250 people, including a clutch of ex-players, raised almost £5,000 during a race night held in the Legend’s Lounge to help Rowland get back on his feet.

There are almost too many people to thank, including the staff at Mind, but he’s willing to give it a go.

Rowland said: “The staff that I’ve worked with over the last two years and the staff helping me when I really did need help; now working with them as colleagues is a real privilege.

“They are really caring, considerate people who really are very understanding. They have got this way with people that you can’t buy and picking bits up from them over the last year or 18 months has been a real help in fitting in to the role as a member of staff.

“I’m very fortunate. I go to the member’s lounge on the matchdays. I had a benefit night arranged by Adam Wainright and Phil King down at the County Ground and we had something like 250 people down there on the night and Phil and Adam said they could have sold it four times over.

“I see those people quite often and I really do appreciate everything they did for me because I was really in a bad way at the time and they put on a race night for me and I’ll never be able to thank them enough for it.

“I do see a lot of these people on matchdays and a lot of them do remember 30 years ago – die-hard Swindon fans who have gone through thick and thin – I really would take my hat off to them because they really did give me a boost when I needed it.

“Seeing them on matchdays is great. They all say ‘hi Andy, how you doing?’ and it really does build you up and give you that strength and confidence to get on with life.

“I did take quite a big shine to some of the local footballers when I was a player. I was coaching teams like Supermarine when they were in their early days and even local teams like Juventus on a Sunday morning – I used to take their training.

“They all really did help me when I did need it badly.”