While Bob Higgins is almost two and a half years into a 24-year sentence for abusing schoolboy players, the men he preyed upon are left to untangle the roots he put down in their personal lives. A running theme among those interviewed is that he set himself up as a “father figure”, pulling the wool over parents’ eyes but also inveigling himself into the affections of children whose backgrounds were less stable. In many cases, psychological control was only the start.
One section of the Barnardo’s report into the horrific sexual abuse Higgins committed at Southampton explains how he would punish some of the boys – by failing to select them, humiliating them or physically assaulting them – to press home the message that he owned their claim to a football career, paving the way to further abuse. “My relationship with Bob was that I could never do well enough,” one is quoted as saying. “Sometimes I was physically sick from training. He created the opportunity to abuse me, mentally first, physically next, then sexually over a three-and-a-half-year period.” Another states: “Basically, if I let him abuse me, he’d be happy with me.”
Among a distressing series of testimonies about the mental impact of Higgins’ crimes, one element stands out in particular. The former youth coach emotionally manipulated some of the 26 men interviewed to such a damaging extent that, years later, they have deeply conflicted responses to his memory.
Higgins used his privileged position, together with a track record of developing football talent that convinced players and parents he held the keys to potential stardom, to exert a mental hold that in some cases is yet to be relinquished. “I still have feelings towards Bob,” reads one statement. “I don’t know if I still love him – I don’t know if I’d hug him or hit him.”
The disgraced coach would weave his way into the family lives of the affected players, sometimes seeking to manufacture rifts between youngsters and their parents. “I hate to say it, but I owe a lot to him,” another says. “He did what a father would do. I still feel sad that he’s in a cell, but he deserves it.”
The turmoil is outlined in another testimony that explains the way Higgins, who would shower boys with gifts such as boots, kit and extra money on top of their expenses, bred dependency in those under his care. “The way he groomed people was the most strange thing,” it says. “He gave you things, he rewarded you. Even though he abused you, you were in awe of him. I was confused about a lot of things for many reasons.” A further section of the text reads: “I’ll never take it away from him, he made you feel very, very special.”
Higgins left young people who should have been free to trust him with a horrifying burden that, in many cases, continues to affect them. The Barnardo’s report into his crimes, which concludes that Southampton institutionally failed to protect them and that people in other football authorities neglected to act, goes into detail about the tactics sexual abusers use to manipulate adolescents. Higgins’ attentions would, it says, have been “acutely and intensely affecting at the time” given the powerful feelings experienced as the brain develops. It explains that some of the boys “developed a sense of loyalty towards Higgins and developed a complex and compelling bond with him, which even as adults, they found hard to understand”.
Although Higgins is not believed to have told his victims to keep quiet about his actions, which took place between 1971 and 1996, it is clear his status as a “star maker” held them in his thrall, as did the fear in some cases that they might be prevented from continuing in football if anyone else knew. His unspoken code of omertà has had a devastating wider impact on families.
“I am consumed, night and day, by feelings of guilt and shame, sadness and revulsion,” reads a heartbreaking statement from a parent of one of the boys, who was unaware of the abuse at the time. “I feel a failure as a [parent] and I will forever be in a mental prison [for failing to protect my son].”
Other long-term consequences of Higgins’ actions are equally difficult to digest. As well as those who have sought recourse to alcohol or been diagnosed with PTSD and depression, some of the men describe persistent difficulties in forming relationships, dealing with their sexuality or coping with flashbacks. Higgins stole dozens of childhoods and took adult lives with them, too.
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While Higgins worked with a number of boys who would become high-profile footballers, others relinquished the sport for good. “It turned me off being a professional football,” says one player quoted in the report. “I ended up quitting because of the way he affected me,” says another. “It brought back bad memories.” For some, that has continued for life. “I couldn’t have anything to do with football, couldn’t watch it, couldn’t even kick a ball in the garden with my young son,” a third explains.
The publication of the Barnardo’s report is not guaranteed to bring closure, which is an intensely personal process that may mean different things for every individual involved, but it has offered a voice to those men who felt able to speak. It has also prompted questions that may never be satisfactorily answered. “Players stopped playing, but no one asked why,” reads one quote attributed to Southampton’s current head of safeguarding and governance. If anyone had, some of the innocent boys whose lives Higgins ruined might have been spared an incalculable number of years attempting to wrestle with his appalling legacy.
