Scottish men are used to being stereotyped. Not everyone drinks Irn Bru in a kilt, but one assumption that might ring true is that bravado can get in the way of talking about your emotions.
Fin Anderson is trying to change that. The 27-year-old co-founded Mental Mechanics FC, an Edinburgh-based amateur football club, after his close friend Charlie Tull took his own life in 2019.
They’re not mechanics, but they’re on a mission to correct the stigma surrounding men’s mental health. “I lost Charlie due to mental health issues and started the club out of annoyance and frustration that young people were finding it difficult to express themselves,” Anderson said. “An amateur soccer match is probably one of the most difficult places to being able to come out and talk freely about your emotions.”
Players do not need to have personal experience with mental health issues, but are expected to help create an environment where these issues can be discussed openly and honestly. The club are supporters of Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), one of three charities chosen to The Times and Sunday Times Christmas campaign. CALM has secured up to £200,000 in matching funds from the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust.
Suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50 in the UK, and men are three times more likely to die this way than women. In Scotland last year, 753 people committed suicide.
“The Scottish community is very loving, but we find it hard to talk about our emotions,” Anderson said. “[The sooner] we realize that it is not going to damage our egos, better, that is something that I have learned from the club”.
The Mental Mechanics train on Wednesday afternoons, when about 30 players between the ages of 21 and 35 gather. “It’s wet, cold and you just need a little football to cheer you up,” said club president Josh MacPhee, 26.
Fin Anderson with his friend, Charlie Tull, right, who took his own life. “This club has allowed me to heal by sharing my pain,” Anderson said.
Anderson met Tull when she was 13 in her hometown of Forres, in north-east Scotland. They always “laughed with the other boys”, and football always dominated the conversation with his friend, an Arsenal fan. Tull liked outdoor activities, and Anderson remembers taking walks with his golden retriever, Oscar. He died at the age of 24 after battling depression.
“It was a very difficult time for me, but this club has allowed me to heal by sharing my pain,” Anderson said.
The soccer field can be a particularly difficult space to open up, players have said, because of the aggressive drive to win. Cliques often prevail on teams. MacPhee cites the case of Albion Rovers player David Cox, who walked out of the stadium and announced his retirement last year after an opposition player allegedly mocked him for attempting suicide, which he had spoken about.
MacPhee has had opposition players approach him after matches saying they are afraid to speak in front of their teammates and praising Mechanics for making it easier.
Players often have to deal with “locker room bravado where everyone is Jack the kid, yelling at each other,” said Johnny De Silva, a new Mechanics player. De Silva, 30, knows masculine bravery better than most: He spent ten years in the military.
“I come from a very alpha male background, ‘You don’t talk about feelings, you don’t show any weakness,’” he said. “I had no friends, Edinburgh was a new city for me and I just wanted to play football. I was going through a very difficult time in my life, I needed these guys and they were there for me.
“You have the football side of things, that’s where you let your competitive alpha out, then you go out to dinner and everyone starts opening up to each other.”
MacPhee said: “You always think the worst, that someone will judge you for talking about your emotions. But we are trying to beat the stigma and tell men to open up because no one will really judge them.”
One of the ways they do that is through their kit: bright pink, it sticks out like a sore thumb on any football field, especially against the December snowfall.
“They tease us, they yell at us, they call us names, but we are challenging that toxic masculinity,” said Jake Wales, 25. He previously campaigned for CALM and joined Mechanics to help foster conversations about men’s mental health.
“Open the conversation,” said the club’s 28-year-old manager and coach, Alex Andrews. “Every week when I lead the warm-up, the kids at Forrester High School, where we train, ask me why we wear pink. When I tell them, they don’t ignore it and it’s good because I hope it helps them too.”
The door is always open: Andrews often gets calls from players off the field about topics they don’t want to share with their families. “We’ve all grown up watching football and seen the bravado, so playing in an environment where you can be yourself I think breaks down a lot more barriers than people realize.”
“We have situations where we lose a game and emotions run high, and that could be something else as well, but everyone pitches in to make sure that person is okay by putting their arm around their shoulder,” Andrews said.
Anderson said the club helps him remember the fun he had when Tull was alive. “Since starting the club, I feel like Charlie has touched my life even more by helping me meet some great guys and learn that the only way to get through this is to talk about it.
“I was always proud of Charlie and I think he would be proud to see what the club is doing today.”
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