To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, London FA is pleased to deliver a case study feature focusing on a fantastic football club with mental health awareness at the heart of its function.

Minds United train on Saturdays in Emslie Hornimans Pleasance and compete in the Middlesex FA North West London Mental Health League, which has fixtures played once a month.

All are welcome to join and after each training session, all participants are offered free lunch and drinks in a social hub opposite the training venue, where people can talk about how they’re doing and engage with people minus any stigma connected to mental health.

“We’re currently providing our services on Zoom due to our COVID-19 response, and received funding from the London Community Response,” explains Tarik Kaidi, founder of Minds United FC.

“This funding was used to buy IT equipment and work phones for our volunteers.

“We have also created a website www.mindsunitedfc.com with links to our Zoom meetings and have merchandise available for our supporters that donate to our club.

“We were successful in the Grenfell Projects Fund and will also be delivering a variety of online leadership courses as part of the Grenfell Community Leadership programme,” he continues. “We interviewed Les Ferdinand on the NHS One Community Radio show and the video is on our YouTube and Social Media Accounts.

“We have a partnership with the NHS and have a team in the North West London Mental Health league. London FA gave us our first grant last year to help us set up a Turn Up & Play centre and we represent them on our kit sponsor logo.

“It will be a year in July (that we first started) and we look forward to having our first AGM, we are happy that we can offer 1-2-1 training and look forward to being able to train as a group in the future.”

For more on Minds United FC, please visit www.mindsunitedfc.com