We can confirm that Saturday’s home game against Crawley Town (kick off, 3pm) will be our first dedicated Mental Health Awareness Matchday.
Working in partnership with NAViGO, the aim of this awareness matchday is to encourage positive conversations about mental health among our supporters, improve knowledge around the subject and reach people who have always been seen as traditionally hard to reach.
Speaking ahead of the Crawley game, our CEO Debbie Cook said, “Many people will encounter mental health struggles at some point in their lives, and I think it’s important that the football club encourages conversation around such an important topic and plays a part in trying to break the stigma around it.
“With World Mental Health Day just around the corner, we wanted to dedicate the Crawley matchday to raising awareness. We know that the football club holds an important and influential position in the local community, and we hope that, by just shining the light on a topic like this, we can support the excellent work NAViGO and others are doing and potentially help some of our fans too.”
To help raise awareness and to get some key messages across, alongside NAViGO, we have planned several activities to take place all over Blundell Park on Saturday.
The players will warm-up in T-shirts in support of the campaign, our matchday programme will include several dedicated features on the subject and the big screen will be utilised to showcase important information and signpost local services throughout the afternoon.
Also, on the way into the ground, NAViGO will be providing fans with a wallet-sized information card with details about local services available to them and there will be NAViGO staff members on every turnstile and in the Family Fanzone before the game should a supporter want to have an informal chat.
There will even be a ‘positivity wall’, donated by myenergi, next to the gate at the end of Constitutional Avenue for supporters to write a positive message on the subject and create a lasting monument at Blundell Park.
If you’d like to find out more about the Club’s partnership with NAViGO, read ‘Teaming Up To Tackle Mental Health’.
Let’s support Town. Let’s support ourselves. Let’s support each other.
