Those unconvinced by the social benefits of playing football might wonder what positive effects the sport is capable of. A bit of exercise, maybe; or, at a stretch, the opportunity for grown men to banter with one another. But Janette Hynes, founder of the Positive Mental Attitude League, has shown that the sport is more than capable of doing important work in the treatment and convalescence of people with mental health issues.
The London-based PMAL consists of 12 teams in two divisions from all over London. Each team trains twice a week for four hours, and plays monthly matches. The difference between this and other amateur football leagues, however, is that the players are all current and former “NHS mental health service users”, with conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Hynes, 40, runs both leagues, and is the manager of the PMAL team Hackney FC.
Hynes, who is an occupational therapist at Homerton University Hospital in east London, explains the idea behind PMAL. She noticed that for mental health patients in hospital, playing football had positive psychological and physical benefits. But she noticed, too, that there was nothing being organised for these patients once they were discharged. She resolved to change this and at first met some resistance. “Mental health publicity is mainly people just out of hospital stabbing someone,” she says, “and this stigmatises all patients.” She continued to try and convince the authorities, including the Football Association and local NHS trusts, that a league for people who had suffered mental health problems was viable and, in 2005, was allowed to set up PMAL.
The league has been a remarkable success, and last year Hynes was named 2007 Social Entrepreneur of the Year by Medical Futures, a group that champions the most innovative ideas of medical workers. “In three years, there have been no fights,” she says. “Football addresses it all – from anger management to anxiety control.”
At Hackney FC’s training ground, the benefits are clear. The most apparent one is that playing gets people out of the house. Albert Dias, a 43-year-old originally from Goa in India, is excited about training. Dias’s schizophrenia has led to a life spent in and out of hospital. Without PMAL, he might have spent the day alone, watching television. Lean and bouncy, he has also lost a stone-and-a-half playing football.
Hayley White, 22, is Hackney’s only female player. She has OCD and experiences social anxiety, where she is panicked by everyday situations. “I come across quite well but I’m screaming inside,” she explains, matter-of-factly. I ask her if she used to play football at school, wondering whether someone with mental health problems could make the team, and am surprised by her reply: “I played for Arsenal, Chelsea and England under-16s.”
The rest of the team gradually arrive. Simply getting their kit together and being somewhere on time teaches them a level of self-management that endless therapy cannot, says Hynes. Spirits are high, as is the standard of football. The players mill around, chatting, joking, and doing impressive “keepie-uppies”. On this evidence, I am not surprised that Hackney have won the PMAL league in each of its two seasons (last season they scored 51 goals and conceded only two).
Training, a slick, professional affair, begins in earnest. I talk to Peter Smith, the team’s 34-year-old captain, who is currently injured. In 2002, he was hospitalised when bipolar disorder triggered a breakdown. Since then he has struggled to resume a normal working life but he’s just been hired as a project co-ordinator with the charity 4Sight, which sponsors and supports drama and writing for black people with mental health problems. “PMAL was the catalyst for me,” he says. “I’d studied, but I never completed anything due to my illness. Now, through what I’ve learnt at PMAL, I can manage myself effectively enough to get a good job, and do it well.”
Smith succinctly sums up PMAL’s value. “Take someone out of society, stick them on their own in a flat, medicate them ... anybody would be destroyed, let alone someone who’s already fragile. PMAL is about giving people the ability to be independent, but with support.”
The long-term nature of PMAL’s support is particularly beneficial. “The problem in mental health,” Smith explains, “is that good people move on. The programme you’re involved in stops, or the new person is no good. Here we have regular, constant, holistic treatment.” The teams in PMAL are funded by the Football Foundation Small Grants scheme, a sports charity backed by the Premier League, FA, Sport England and the government. Crucially, however the teams are run by the players, not by the NHS, local council, or other body whose priorities might change.
Funds allowing, as long as the players want to play, the clubs and the league will continue. Julio Joseph, 32, is injured, too, but has come along to watch training. A schizophrenic, in 1999 he was sent to a secure hospital for four years for aggrieved bodily harm. He’d hit his girlfriend, hated himself for it and thought his life was over. With PMAL’s help he has taken several refereeing exams, and now officiates for the Amateur Football Combination, Europe’s largest amateur league.
The individual successes aside, Hynes intends to extend the scheme nationwide. Generating more awareness of mental health can help to reduce the stigma that surrounds these conditions and to encourage people, particularly teenagers (often the time when problems start) to self-diagnose and not be embarrassed to seek help.
“What I’ve done with football is show them that their lives aren’t finished if they’ve got mental health problems,” says Hynes.
For more info on PMAL see www.leaguewebsite.co.uk/pmafl
