Matt Beard's wife has called for regular, mandatory mental health checks for football managers after the two-time Women's Super League winner died aged 47 in September.

Debbie Beard said the family had no warning that anything was wrong when she and their son Harry took the family dog for a long walk earlier on the day he died. Beard was found at home and died later in hospital, and is believed to have taken his own life, although an inquest has yet to conclude.

“We would never have seen that coming - not in a million years. I just wish he had said ‘I’m struggling’,” she said. “It was just normal.”

Her comments come after the death of one of the most successful and beloved managers in the women’s game, a figure whose loss shook football and beyond. Debbie Beard said her husband had experienced emotional difficulties after the death of his father in 2022, but would continue to work and behave as normal, which made the warning signs impossible to read from the outside.

She said managers should not be expected to ask for help in a job built around pressure, scrutiny and very little spare time. “I want to see a change - there should be proper mental health checks for managers,” she said. “It’s such high-stakes pressure that they are under, it should be part of the regular monitoring.”

Debbie Beard said managers should have a designated safe space to talk to someone and offload, and that someone should see them once a week for a check-in. “There should be a designated safe space that managers can go and talk to someone and offload. It should be mandatory that someone sees them, no questions asked, once a week for a check-in,” she said.

Her appeal sharpens the unanswered question left by Beard’s death: whether football, which relies so heavily on the emotional labour of managers, will build support that does not depend on a person admitting they are in crisis before anyone intervenes.