Matt Maher: Callum Lea using Minds’ power to help others

Callum Lea already knows all about that. After experiencing his own problems with mental health, the Staffordshire teenager set about trying to help others and now, at a time of huge uncertainty, is there to aid any young athletes who might have found their world suddenly turned upside down.

Last year Lea founded the charity Sporting Minds UK to raise awareness and provide support for sports people aged between 16 and 30. The last few weeks, as you might suspect, have been a particularly busy time.

“It is difficult to put a number on precisely how many people have been in touch,” says Lea. “But we’ve had seven calls in the last 12 hours and that is pretty typical.

“This is a difficult time for athletes, for a whole variety of reasons. Many have a very structured lifestyle which has suddenly been taken away, while there are others concerned about job security.

“You’ve got some athletes who have been preparing years for events which are now not taking place. Mentally that can be very tough to deal with and our role as a charity is to make sure we are there to help.”

Lea, as becomes apparent very quickly, is not your average 19-year-old. A promising batsman who was part of Worcestershire’s academy system, the inspiration for starting Sporting Minds came from his own experiences after a full summer of cricket in 2018 began to take its toll.

“I’d just finished my A-Levels at Malvern College, a place where I was very happy and felt secure, when I went straight into a full summer with the academy, which included some matches for the county seconds,” he explains. “That is when I started to struggle with some mental health issues which were related to my sport.

“Cricket is in many respects an individual sport. Your own role is always in the spotlight.

“It is relentless and for me it reached a point where it all started to become too much.

“It was when I started to seek help I found the support systems in place, at least in my opinion, weren’t all that good. In particular, there wasn’t really an organisation out there focused solely on helping young athletes.”

After discussions with his dad, Tony, the idea for Sporting Minds was born and after several months of hard work charitable status was attained last November. Lea’s primary goal has been to create a network and community in which young athletes can be open and honest about their mental health, while also offering direct help through a partnership with Bupa which funds free one-to-one sessions. It also provides mental health first-aider training courses for coaches.

“There are already a lot of awareness raising campaigns surrounding mental health but we wanted to do something a little more direct,” says Lea. “Athletes who are experiencing problems are already very aware of them. We want to support them as best we can.

“We can give them access to one-on-one sessions and a support network and we are here round-the-clock, 24/7 if they need to get in touch. We want to let them know they are not alone.”

Lea has assembled an impressive list of ambassadors, from a variety of sports, to help spread the message. Joining cricketers Joe Clarke, Ben Twohig and Tom Abell are the likes of Stoke City striker (and one-time Shrewsbury loanee) Tyrese Campbell, cyclist Elinor Barker and gymnast Dom Cunningham.

Bournemouth defender Chris Mepham is the most high-profile ambassador, while Sporting Minds’ work was recently endorsed by Dame Kelly Holmes.

“The aim is to one day have around 1,000 ambassadors,” says Lea. “It started with people I knew from cricket and Worcestershire, then the people they knew and gradually the network has started to grow. We’ve had a lot of people messaging us offering to help.

“Chris Mepham was someone we reached out to and he has been fantastic. He was being interviewed on Radio 5Live the other week and gave our work a mention.

“The ambassadors are role models, to show young athletes that if they can be open and honest about issues then they can too. It is all about getting the message out there and letting as many people know as possible.”

Lea, who lives in Brewood, splits his work on the charity with his studies at Oxford Brookes University, where he is reading philosophy and politics.

And though his dream to make it is a professional cricketer might now be distant, his love for the sport remains strong, albeit there will likely be few chances to play for Himley in the Birmingham League this summer.

“This is such an uncertain time for everyone,” says Lea. “There are a lot of young sports people who will have seen this summer as a chance to progress their careers who have had that opportunity taken away.

“Sometimes it can be seen as a bit of a burden to be open and honest with your mental health while you are playing a sport. But in actual fact mental health in any sport is being brought to the forefront and is a serious issue. Being open and honest about it is really crucial.

“My message to any sports person would be to get involved with us and help us out, help us raise awareness.

“There are so many examples of people sharing their mental health stories which have benefited lots of individuals. It is a really powerful tool.”

To learn more about the charity, visit sportingmindsuk.org