Mental Health, Crime, Sport, Community, and Island Life: The Post-Retirement Struggles of a Fiji Soccer Hero

Abstract

This article explores the soccer career of the ex-Fiji national-team player, Henry Dyer, and his post-retirement struggles. He experiences ‘fragmentation’ because of two ‘epiphanies’ (traumatic life-events)—his failure to get an elite coaching job after retirement and failure to secure an overseas playing-contract. After a period of fragmentation, when he cut all ties with the sport, he has reinvented himself as a caring person who, through the social and support club, Nadi Legends Club, visits ex-players going through illness. We also use Henry’s story as a gateway to explore (1) race and class aspects; and (2) masculinity issues. We look at the case through the theoretical lenses of symbolic interactionism and Foucault on power.