If John Halls was playing the game Two Truths and a Lie, the 42-year-old north Londoner would be difficult to decipher. In 1991, as a young child, he appeared in the opening scene of a Kylie Minogue music video . The video for Word Is Out was filmed in Camden Market in the early hours of the morning and included a cameo from British TV presenter Davina McCall as one of Minogue’s backup dancers.
A decade on, aged 19, Halls made his debut for boyhood club Arsenal against Manchester United at Highbury in the Worthington Cup (now the Carabao Cup) third round. The midfielder from Islington, who also played at full-back, was subbed on in the second half of the 4-0 win to replace a player who went on to win the Champions League with Barcelona in 2006 and started in a World Cup final in 2010. Shortly after swapping places with former Netherlands left-back Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Halls was shown a yellow card for blocking Phil Neville’s cross with his arm.
Twenty minutes later, he kicked through winger Bojan Djordjic and was booked again, and then sent off. Eleven years later, his career ended in similarly abrupt circumstances. After leaving Arsenal in 2003 and going on to feature for the likes of Stoke City , Brentford and Crystal Palace , Halls was forced to retire at 30 because of an ongoing injury.
This premature end didn’t really hit home for Halls u ntil he was in his mid-thirties and experienced a period of depression. The onset of low mood thanks to his dealing with lo.
