IT is tempting as you edge towards middle age to get all misty eyed about the past. Everything was better in the old days (the World Cup is currently the favourite reference point for such nostalgic navel-gazing). Yes, modern life is rubbish. That reminds me, the music was better back in the day too.
But what has certainly improved since my salad days are societal attitudes towards mental health. In particular, there is nowhere near the level of stigma attached to the idea of men asking for help if they are struggling mentally, or in asking their pals if they are struggling.
Given the stark statistics around suicide among men in Scotland, that progress has been vitally important. And there can be no underestimating the role that the football community has played in achieving that progress across Scottish society.
There is though, still much work to be done. According to Public Health Scotland, suicide remains the biggest killer of young people in Scotland, and men account for almost three out of four suicides.
It is heartening then to see the wonderful and vital energy that football is pouring into the problem in an attempt to better that sorry situation. Whether it is the clubs themselves, the governing bodies or the numerous charities and other organisations around the game, there is so much good work being done throughout Scottish football to help inch the cause forward.
Apologies to anyone I have missed, but to name just a few…Back Onside do incredible work in supporting the mental health of players, while the likes of Street Soccer Scotland, SAMH, Time to Tackle and The Kris Boyd Charity all do vital work in reaching out to football fans who may be having issues with their mental health.
It was a campaign from FC United to Prevent Suicide that caught the eye on social media though during the half-time interval of the World Cup clash between England and Wales on Tuesday night.
The charity tweeted a video featuring Scottish football legends like James McFadden, Scottish personalities like Jamie Murray and a host of others from television and the terraces who were united in delivering the message that there is no issue that cannot be solved by talking to someone.
As they have throughout the World Cup, the point they were making was that a simple 15-minute chat can save a life. By lending their weight to the campaign, the personalities involved were utilising football’s platform to amplify that message, and were hopefully saving lives in the process.
By working together, these Scottish football stakeholders have already done just that in the past. My own local club Motherwell, for example, are just one of the clubs who work closely with FC United to Prevent Suicide, and CEO Alan Burrows once relayed a story about the impact that simply making visible the various channels of help that are available can have.
“One person messaged me privately on Twitter and was honest enough to tell me that he’d found himself in a phone box in Paisley calling Breathing Space on the back of seeing the signage at Fir Park,” Burrows said.
In partnership with the SPFL Trust and the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH), a total of 21 clubs throughout Scotland took part in ‘The Changing Room’ initiative this season. This was a 12-week programme launched on World Mental Health Day in October, where stadiums across the country were opened up as ‘a safe space for men to gain peer support, share lived experiences and best practice on managing their mental health’.
Aberdeen, Albion Rovers, Alloa, Annan Athletic, Clyde, Cowdenbeath, Dundee, Dunfermline, East Fife, Falkirk, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian Livingston, Montrose, Morton, Motherwell, Peterhead, Queen’s Park, Rangers, Ross Country, and St Mirren all took part.
The clubs who weren’t involved in this initiative still, for the most part, have carried out their own work to reach out to their communities.
The Celtic FC Foundation, for example, have a similar 12-week programme entitled ‘You’ll Never Talk Alone’, and schemes such as ‘Team Talk’, where men experiencing mental health difficulties can come to Ibrox every Wednesday and find a safe place to discuss their feelings among their peers, offer ongoing support to fans who might find it otherwise difficult to open up. If you check the website of your own club, you are likely to find similar initiatives taking place.
The societal issues behind the high suicide rate in Scotland are complex and cannot be solved by programmes such as ‘The Changing Room’, or indeed, by the efforts of football alone. But while it may have once been derided as one of the last bastions of toxic masculinity in our society, there is absolutely no doubt that Scottish football has stepped up when it comes to the issue of suicide prevention, and has helped immeasurably in ensuring that talking about mental health is no longer the taboo it once was.
In no small part thanks to the efforts of those involved in Scottish football, I can even grudgingly admit that some things most definitely are better now than they were in the old days. The game is making a difference, and it deserves huge credit for doing so.
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