Football marks mental health day

Albion in the Community is the charitable arm of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club.

It works across Sussex to make sport accessible for all, tackle inequality, improve health and education, and provide opportunities.

The six a side Mental Health Awareness tournament brought together 150 participants involved in Albion in the Community’s mental wellbeing football sessions and from community schemes across England.

The Albion in the Community sessions use football to help people overcome mental health issues and challenge the stigma surrounding mental health.

The event was supported by American Express volunteers .

These volunteers helped with logistics, and also refereed matches alongside coaches from Albion in the Community.

In attendance were Brighton & Hove Albion Women’s players Charley Boswell and Charlotte Gurr, as well as Under 21 Development Squad players Jesse Starkey and Robin Deen.

Joining them were two former Albion players - Danny Cullip and Guy Butters - who came along to help cheer on the teams.

The Albion in the Community Mental Wellbeing Cup was won by the Croydon Eagles.

Brighton’s AITC William Collier team won the Plate.

Fair Play was awarded to Bexhill’s Lawn Court teams.

This year’s World Mental Health Day was held on Saturday, October 10.

The theme for 2015 is ‘Dignity in Mental Health’.

To mark the occasion, the Mental Health Foundation worked to raise awareness of what can be done to ensure that people with mental health problems can live with dignity.

One in four adults and one in ten children are likely to have a mental health problem in any given year.

This can have a profound impact on the lives of tens of millions of people in the UK.

It can affect their ability to sustain relationships, work, or just get through the day.

However, ill informed or damaging attitudes can promote stigma around mental health and make it difficult for people to seek help.

It is estimated that only about a quarter of people with a mental health problem in the UK receive ongoing treatment.

This means that the majority of people grappling with mental health issues are left on their own, seeking help or information, and dependent on the informal support of family, friends or colleagues.

World Mental Health Day aims to challenge this problem by confronting stigma with facts.

For more information about World Mental Health Day, visit www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/world-mental-health-day.

For more information about Albion in the Community, visit albioninthecommunity.org.uk.

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