Q. When did you start Talking Cherries and what was its genesis?

Talking Cherries is a mental health initiative set up by fans, for the fans. In 2019 lifelong Cherries fan Peter Humphrey sadly passed after his battle with mental health and the outpouring of emotion from fellow fans was palpable.

Having lived through some tough moments myself, as we all do, I thought why don’t we use the power of football and the love for our team to have conversations about mental health. Football brings everyone together. It’s a common conversation at the weekend, during the week and more and there is always something to talk about. Opening up needs a solid conversational base so why not football.

Q. How has the network grown since then?

Believe it or not we’re five years in from the initial idea and we’ve come such a long way. The conversation about mental health was always there and the COVID-19 period probably entrenched that even more. Our Zoom calls with fans over that period definitely made a difference and as awareness grew of the small team we had, conversations started not only with us but within the wider fan community.

It took a number of years to build the right relationships from the football club to local support networks and other signposting options, together with encouraging more fans to engage in a conversation. Once we were confident we’d reached a place where we had a solid foundation and simple support structure of like minded fans, we thought about how we could extend these learnings to help others in the football family do something simple.

About a year ago Talking Royals came on board and we recently had the announcement from Talking Spurs – they are fundraising to cover the cost of their mental health first aid training. Any funds raised beyond that will go to the wider cause.

Talking Hatters are hopefully round the corner and we welcome others to join the conversation and become part of what we are calling the Talking Platform. This is being set up as a community-benefit society where fans work together to raise funds for mental health first aid training and more to build the network.

We advocate as a team for a small number of mental health first aiders that over time become known in the fan base should anyone want to talk. We also try to find fans in our community with lived experience who may be able to help – for instance we have a fan who progressed through problem gambling and is always open to talking to someone if they want a chat.