I’ve struggled since school with self-confidence and doubt – now I want to help people over mental health, says Bridge

FORMER England defender Wayne Bridge is helping lead the charge to encourage football fans and other people to talk to each other.

The left-back, who had spells at Southampton, Chelsea, Man City and five other clubs, is involved with the #TalkMoreThanFootball campaign which has been launched by Three UK, Samaritans and Chelsea.

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Wayne Bridge, with wife Frankie, revealed he has struggled with self-confidence and doubt as he launches a new campaign to promote mental health awareness[/caption]

Bridge, 43, helped launch the campaign at Stamford Bridge ahead of Chelsea’s thrilling 4-3 win over Manchester United.

A video featuring Blues stars Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson – as well as footballer-turned-Hollywood-star Vinnie Jones – was played on the big screens at the ground before the match.

Bridge told SunSport: “I was on SAS Who Dares Wins, it was the most open I’ve been and to be honest I didn’t even know I was being filmed.

“I got called into the doctor’s room with Ant Middleton and they were really inquisitive with me.

“I started crying, I’d struggled since school about feeling stupid, feeling dumb – really struggled with that.

“After my career I was at a dinner with Glenn Hoddle and someone asked a question about me.

“And he said I didn’t realise how good I was, that I struggled with self-confidence.

“He got someone into the club to speak to me, told the players to encourage me and get round me, do visualisation and breathing techniques.

“Glenn was ahead of his time with that because he brought stuff in to get players to talk more about what they want from each other.

“But it wasn’t until much later when I look back at that now and go ‘I was struggling a bit’.

“I didn’t really pay attention to it until retiring if I’m honest.”

Reuters

Bridge won 36 caps for England and played for eight clubs, including Chelsea and Man City[/caption]

The campaign comes as new research of 2,000 football fans shows that:

• Two-thirds have struggled with their mental health
• One in three have never spoken about it
• Only 6% of fans talk about mental well-being with other people they watch of play sport with

The research also sought to find why people aren’t reaching out and showed:

• 27% said seeing more famous people regularly talking about mental health would help
• 65% would like to know how to broach the subject
• 62% would like a prompt to talk about it more regularly.

Bridge added: “It’s great with Vinnie Jones being so open about it. He’ll help more people than he realises.

“The more people that do come out and talk about it, they are helping people. It makes people feel more comfortable doing it.

“Someone is always going to say something and have a dig about them because that’s the world we live in, but they will be helping people.

“I think it’s really hard for someone to open up, it’s not easy.

“The more people talking about it, being open about it, helps loads. It will help someone.

“And if you need it then seek professional help.

“I had it when I did I’m a Celeb and I’ve stayed in contact with the woman from there who’s definitely helped me.

“It’s not just football either, we want to help everyone. We want people to use that passion and not just talk football but open up as well.”

Vinnie Jones is fronting the campaign alongside Chelsea stars Cole Palmer, Robert Sanchez, Nicolas Jackson and Alfie Gilchrist

Vinnie Jones, who made his name playing for Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’ and has recently starred in hit Netflix show The Gentelmen, said: “I grew up in an era when mental health wasn’t even a thing, yet it’s something I struggled with without realising.

“Now I want to empower men and women to talk about it.

“To those of us that love football – we need to use those connections we have made to talk about more than just football.

“If I can do it, then you can too.”

●      Three UK, Chelsea FC and Samaritans want football fans to #TalkMoreThanFootball in emotive campaign to tackle mental health