Coventry mental health football team have an ‘unbelievable’ response.

A member of staff at Coventry University has set up a mental health football team to help people talk about their struggles through a shared love of sport. Sean Davies, 33, was inspired to set up Stay Strong United after dealing with his own problems, including the loss of loved ones.

Stay Strong United gives people the opportunity to be active as well as a safe space to share and express their feelings with others in hopes that it can naturally help them. Sean’s initial aim was to support himself and others to ‘use football’ as a foundation for improved mental health.

He said: “You have a platform to just go and play football, make some friends, talk openly about how your week has been and talk about mental health, knowing that it’s a safe environment.

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He added that the responses were “unbelievable”: “It’s something I’ve been very proud of and I can reflect and say I’m making a difference and helping people in Coventry and Warwickshire.”

Stay Strong United is open to people aged 18 or over for men and women of any footballing ability. For Sean, it’s not the results on the field that matter, it’s the results off the field. Its ethos is for people to show up and have fun as well as celebrate each other’s mental health successes.

He explained: “It’s just a casual recreational game where at the end of the day you can make some friends, you can find someone else out there with the same mind as you and we can improve your mental health. It’s for everyone.

“At the end of the hour or an hour and a half, we’ll leave celebrating our successes of playing football and being out of the house, being out of our dark areas that we might have had the day before or the morning before . For Me, our success will be celebrating each other’s mental health successes. We will celebrate what we do together and how we will continue to strive as a group.”

Club sessions are held at Christ the King Football Club in Coventry, plus the team will take part in a festival hosted by the West Midlands Mental Health League on Wednesday 26 June involving the Sky Blues in the community, Coventry City FC’s Charity Arms, plus similar foundations from the classics such as Birmingham City and Aston Villa.

One person who was inspired to get involved with the team was Sean’s colleague, Bright Omenogor. He said: “I saw everything about mental health and I said, ‘I love this’ and I’d like to be a part of this journey.” We spoke to Sean and got the full narrative of what it’s all about here as well. I am.

“If something is bothering you, talk to someone about it. But people tend not to talk, I’m one of those people. I tend not to share what I’m going through with people. So I thought about that and the moment. I shared I felt better, when I didn’t share I didn’t share, so why not share?