Tuesday, March 19Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Royal Holloway Men’s Football Charity Campaign

On the pitch, Royal Holloway Men’s Football team excel in supporting one another- however, this year they’ve extended this support to off the pitch, with their ongoing charity work in support of ‘Mind’ and ‘Movember’. I spoke to Jack Colman, Vice President of the club, below is what he had to say about their fundraising mission: 

Royal Holloway Men’s Football is a family. It comes with fun, incredible memories, and at times hardships and struggles. Our year-long fundraising and charity campaign focuses on men’s mental health, particularly targeting and supporting the well-known charity ‘Mind’.

Our reasoning behind choosing mental health as our charitable campaign is that several of our members in their lifetime have either gone through, or are currently going through, stress or mental health issues. We want to be there to support our players as both friends and confidants and we try and help in any way we can. Football as a team sport acts as a brilliant stress reliever and an escape from certain elements of day to day life and in many ways can help a person’s mind navigate through the dark cloud that is mental health.

The two charities we’re working with this year are: ‘Mind’ and ‘Movember’, two charities that target mental health. So far, for ‘Mind’ we’ve raised over £300 with our hugely successful bake sale and “free hugs” action in the library. That action was surprisingly a big success and we received commendations from fellow students, staff and the Runnymede Police force. Moreover, with our current ‘Movember’ campaign and newly released video we’ve raised over £700 in a single day, adding up to over £1000 for men’s health, both mental and physical, around the world. We’ve set ourselves a small target and we only wish to keep going, onward and upward, as a team, as a family.

According to Samaritans, in 2017 there were over 6,000 suicides in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Together, we can fight to change this devastating fact. Men’s Football here at Royal Holloway plays a small part in the movement to help men across the UK, but with help, we can connect with people all over and together and only together can we move forward and aid others in their search for help and a brighter future.

Talk. Ask. Listen. Encourage Action. Check In.

If anyone needs to speak to someone immediately, contact ‘Samaritans’ on 116 123.

If you want to know more about their fundraising campaign, check out the video on the Royal Holloway Men’s Football Facebook page. Good luck boys from all at the Orbital.