Mental Health Awareness Week: Brighton boss Hope Powell reveals her strategy for improving mental health

As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, Hope Powell from Brighton and Hove Albion spoke about her mental health and wellbeing experiences as a football coach, revealing her coping mechanisms and how awareness of this has changed since she she was a player

Powell joined Brighton and Hove Albion in 2017 and previously managed the England and Great Britain women’s Olympic teams. After an exciting career that took her into management, she talks about coping with the pressures of the job.

She said Sky sports news: “It’s a fantastic job, but it’s just a job that I do. And I also recognize that it’s important to get away from it and do other things, which I do. I find it quite easy, actually, and I always have to be fair.

“It’s important to me right now. But, you know, there are other things that are more important to me at the time. So, I choose those moments when I am away from football. Making, you know, football secondary and everything else is a priority.”

In 1998, Powell was appointed the first full-time national coach of the England women’s team. She was also the first woman and the youngest coach in England.

Asked how she deals with the ups and downs of winning and the lows of losing, the first-team coach said: “Winning on a Sunday, you come on a Monday, the atmosphere is very different.

“I think when you lose, you handle it. I’m not happy losing. I don’t like it. I want to win. But then I have to park it. I learn from it, I take from it, and then we go again.”

“I think that’s really important for your well-being. I have to release it at some point. It doesn’t mean I don’t have a time. You know, we could have done better, etc., but there’s a point where I have to let it go.”

At just 19 years old, Powell began her coaching qualifications and in 2003 became the first woman to achieve the UEFA Pro License, the highest coaching award available.

Powell led England to the 2005 European Championship quarter-finals and the 2009 European Championship final. As a player, she made 66 appearances for England, primarily as an attacking midfielder, scoring 35 goals.

Asked about some of the pressures in women’s football, she said: “We have seen more and more in women’s football that managers and coaches are being sacked, which is not good for anyone. I have experienced that, but that is reality.

“And with that comes pressure, comes expectation, comes disappointment. I think you really have to learn to deal with all of that, and that’s not easy, but it tends to come with experience.”

Powell was in charge of the England team for 15 years, leading them to two World Cup tournaments and four European Championships.

Asked how the pressure of managing a national team changes to a club team, he said: “Every week on the national programme, every week is a game. Every week there is pressure to succeed, whereas internationally that pressure it’s maybe once a month. The biggest pressure internationally is in a tournament, so there’s absolute pressure in both, just at different times.

“When I entered domestic football, I felt like I was in a constant tournament because there is a game every week and it was amazing, there was no respite. Internationally, you play one game a month, you deal with that pressure. I have three weeks to decompress.

Mental Health Awareness Week is an opportunity for people to talk openly about all aspects of mental health and how to provide wellness tips and support.

Powell explains how much consciousness has changed, he said: “Years ago when I was a player or started this journey [it was] never speak. Not one bit. I didn’t even think as a manager that someone could be struggling for whatever reason. It just never, ever entered the equation.

“But now it’s very open, I think what’s really cool about the game now that you have wellness staff that take care of both players and staff, mental health, you have mental wellness days, everyone really notices.

“So I can’t really remember what the turning point was and when the turning point was. But it’s gotten to a point where people, players and staff are pretty comfortable saying, ‘Look, I’m having a bit of a rough time, I need support, I need help.’

“And nobody gets any weird looks for admitting something like that, which could be very personal, but everybody is pretty comfortable doing that. And I think that’s a testament to where the game is right now.”