Our Super Robins team have been awarded £4,000 from the Wiltshire Community Foundation’s Coronavirus Response and Recovery Fund.

Launched three years ago, the Super Robins provides coaching to dozens of adults referred by MIND and the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership.

Weekly sessions were originally funded by the Football League and the Wembley Trust, but funding for these ended last September. The Foundation paid for them itself until March but after losing income during the lockdown, we struggled to find the money.

Senior Development Officer Phil Doble said: ​“We understand the importance, but to continue it we needed some help. We have to hire an entire pitch and we need two or three coaches. It was an expense we had no income for, so we were really grateful to the Wiltshire Community Foundation for supporting us with the funding.”

We’re now working on expanding the sessions so more people can benefit and is talking to other groups in Swindon dealing with mental health, including Men’s Mental Health Swindon and TWIGS.

“We have a group of guys who are footballers using football to help their mental wellbeing but what we’d like to do is have a group that aren’t necessarily footballers but they can still use it as part of their recovery. Exercise and being outdoors is so important for your mental wellbeing and we want to help provide that.”

During the lockdown, the group’s sessions had to be cancelled, leaving its regulars without the exercise and companionship that is so vital to their recovery.

“It’s fair to say some of them struggled. We put a WhatsApp group together to stay in touch to keep the conversation flowing, but when they came back, they were definitely subdued and slightly nervous and anxious about being out again.”

For one of our regulars the enforced absence from teammates was particularly tough.

“I have two children and one has autism, so with his special needs and my depression, anxiety, and stress as well, it was difficult. I hit a proper all-time low, and was thinking about ending things.

“I got in contact with Swindon MIND and they told me the foundation’s football sessions were starting back up, so I came along. It’s just good to get back, and get some energy, and everything flowing through the bones. I’ve been back every week since, and I’m feeling a lot better for it.”

Although the coaching sessions provide exercise and football training, the benefits are far reaching. There’s a light-heartedness to the sessions and they have a laugh and a joke at somebody’s expense, normally the coaches.

“You definitely see the camaraderie build up over the weeks. I don’t discuss their mental health issues with them at the sessions, they come along to be part of something and get some exercise, it’s not a therapy group and while they are here, they are footballers, not patients.”

The Wiltshire Community Foundation fund has raised more than £1.1 million and distributed £950,000 through more than 200 grants to groups across the county to help them tackle the fallout from the pandemic.

To donate or to find out how to apply for a grant, go to wilt​shirecf​.org​.uk.