Mental Health Football
I managed to catch-up with co-founders of a brand new initiative in Oldham, Andy Steel and Ross Elliot. The initiative aims to help to improve Mental Health in the local population involving sport. Andy Steel told me all about it:
“Basically “our initiative” is designed to use physical activity to help people who may suffer from mental health issues such as depression or anxiety, the idea started as I found that my own mental health improved when I was involved with football.
“Every Friday at Oldham Futsal Arena, Rochdale Road, Oldham OL9 6AA between 7pm and 8pm we run a free game of football for anyone over the age of 18. We welcome all abilities, and both men and women are able to play, we don’t count the score and we do not have a winner or a loser. This, we feel, takes any pressure of those playing.
There is also the option to watch and take part in that way, we understand that some people may not feel comfortable playing the first time they come and may want to get to know everyone.
We have no expectations for any attendees and we do not ask questions or ask them to talk about their problems, if they wish to then we are there to listen, but for the most part this a safe heaven for people and somewhere they can spend one hour from the things affecting them.
We started this in January and have found the numbers vary between eight and 20, as we do not ask anyone to sign up or chase them to attend to week after week it is very much an open door policy.
Our short term aim was to start something that could help people in the local area, the more people it reaches the better, as the weeks have gone by and support has continued to grow we have started to debate whether it could spread into other towns and areas and become something bigger still.
It is currently run and funded by amateur football club AFC Oldham, who we both volunteer for, it is under their banner that we started this and is one of many community projects the club is a part of.
Oldham Athletic Community Trust got on board from the start and helped to fund our opening weeks, without their support we are not sure we would’ve been able to start it. Since then Martin Vose and the Trust have offered us continuing support and been a huge part of us gaining exposure and seeing an increase in participants.
Author: Jude Gidney - Editor
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