Match fit. Mental health and football ft. Johnnie Lowery

Mental health is a growing issue in football  but suffers from being seen as a taboo subject. Co-hosts Guy and Francesco talk to writer Johnnie Lowery who has published a new book, Match Fit, looking at how mental health affects footballers and fans, why it's been overlooked and what's being done to overcome it. As well as highlighting key moments that can affect players' mental health--as a young player starting out, approaching retirement or suffering a bad injury--Johnnie also points to successful efforts to break down the barriers discouraging acknowledgement and discussion around the issue, from Our Game to Talking Cherries, Beder FC and the Chris Mitchell Foundation.

Match Fit is published by Pitch Publishing and is available to buy here.

Transcript

Get your head in (and out) of the game. Mental health and football ft. Johnnie Lowery

Guy Burton 00:09

Hello and welcome to a new episode of the football podcast where football meets politics. I'm one of your co -hosts, Guy Burton, and this is my other co -host, Francesco Belcastro. How are you doing, Francesco? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:19

I'm fine, Guy. How are you? 

Guy Burton 00:20

I'm doing well today, thanks. Yeah, getting ready to discuss this episode. Do you know what we're talking about today? 

Francesco Belcastro 00:26

We're talking about a very, very important topic: mental health. 

Guy Burton 00:30

Yes, exactly. And to do that, we're actually joined by the person who's written about this, who's actually written the book about mental health and football, Johnnie Lowery, who published a few months ago the book, Match Fit, which discusses mental health in football. 

Guy Burton 00:47

So, Johnnie, welcome to the show. 

Johnnie Lowery 00:49

Hi, thanks for having me on. 

Guy Burton 00:50

You're welcome. And just to give the listeners a little bit more of a flavour of who Johnnie is. He's a very keen football fan and he's followed both England and more importantly Sutton United at both home and away. 

Guy Burton 01:04

And he's also written a book, Six Added Minutes, which was about Sutton United, and I think we'll also touch a bit upon his fandom there. He wrote that while he was at university, and it was published back in November 2019. 

Guy Burton 01:16

Johnnie has a very keen interest in mental health, which is based on his own experiences as a teenager, when he didn't understand always why he was feeling down. So that kind of prompted Match Fit, but I'm sure we're going to get into talking about this. 

Guy Burton 01:29

But Johnnie is very much motivated by trying to make sure that mental health is not something that remains taboo or rather a taboo subject in society. So anyway, Johnnie, it's great to have you. Let's start by talking about mental health. 

Guy Burton 01:43

Could you tell us a little bit about the concept of it and how it relates to sport and football more particularly? 

Johnnie Lowery 01:51

Yeah, sure. So mental health is obviously a very broad term. It's quite often used really to describe primarily anxiety and depression. There's obviously a whole variety of other mental health conditions are more complex, which to be honest, I'm certainly not an expert on I don't know much about. 

Johnnie Lowery 02:11

So I guess a kind of disclaimer to getting right from the start is Match Fit is primarily based around depression and anxiety. It touches on other topics like addiction briefly. But it's certainly it's not the whole umbrella of mental health, if you like. 

Johnnie Lowery 02:28

See the anxiety and depression being the two main topics. I think with with Match Fit. Yeah, like you say that the goal really was to stop mental health being a taboo topic to kind of promote mental health awareness through football. 

Johnnie Lowery 02:45

Based on my own experiences, I struggled with my mental health and I was a teenager without really knowing it. Without understanding what mental health was, I'd never really heard the term. So I thought if I can write a book about football, a lot of people buy books, read books about football without necessarily going out of their way to learn about mental health, but will pick something up by doing it. 

Johnnie Lowery 03:07

Certainly when I was a teenager, I was and still am, obsessed with football. I read a lot of football books and will continue to do so throughout my life. Probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to read a book about mental health. 

Johnnie Lowery 03:21

So really, I hope that by reading Match Fit, people can learn a little bit about mental health, learn a little bit about themselves. I know I did just writing it. 

Guy Burton 03:31

Hmm. 

Johnnie Lowery 03:32

So yeah, hopefully it just boosts that awareness a little bit throughout society. 

Francesco Belcastro 03:38

Fantastic. Well, that's really interesting. I think it's a topic that, as you said, like, we don't often see it with football. In this sense, football seems to be a great way to discuss this issue. Now, in your work, in your research, you've talked to a lot of people involved in the game, players from the top level to lower leagues in grassroots, managers, referees, talking particularly about players, perhaps. 

Francesco Belcastro 04:02

Would you say the challenges to mental health for those playing are the same at different levels of the games in terms of professionals versus maybe more grassroots? And what about different stages of their career? 

Francesco Belcastro 04:16

I think something could have to do, for example, with specific circumstances, with injuries or other issues. So, could you tell us a bit more about that? 

Johnnie Lowery 04:25

Yeah, two parts to this answer. I think there are people who will suffer from mental health issues, regardless, or more or less regardless of the situation they're in. So maybe something in, you know, their, their background, the way they were brought up, maybe just genetic factors, right, I think, you know, some people will be more predisposed to suffer from depression than others. 

Johnnie Lowery 04:47

So within the football world, even if it looks like someone is has it perfect, you know, the top of the game playing in a Premier League, earning great money, doesn't mean they're immune from mental health struggles. 

Johnnie Lowery 05:00

So I mean, I've made that very clear throughout Match Fit, because, yeah, it's the idea that really, if, you know, if someone like... So recently, Richarlison came out and spoke about his mental health, and, you know, top level footballer plays for Brazil. 

Johnnie Lowery 05:14

But the fact that he is, you know, a great footballer at the top, it doesn't mean that he can't struggle with his mental health. And the fact that he talks about it, and there have been others, the top of my head, like Dele Ali, again, I think his issues are largely related to issues he had in his childhood as well. 

Johnnie Lowery 05:34

You know, if these players that they're playing in a sport, which traditionally, you think football is very macho, it's masculine, you need to show strength and not weakness, these are all the stereotypes that I grew up really, seeing in football. 

Johnnie Lowery 05:47

But actually, if someone at the top of their game can talk about mental health, I think it encourages the general population to do so. So that there are specific issues in the football world that can make people more at risk of suffering from depression, anxiety, addiction. 

Johnnie Lowery 06:02

But equally, you know, no one is safe, if you like. So then, I guess the second part, some of the things you were talking about. So the level that you're playing at, I think if you're playing at the top level, the amount of pressure that you're under as a Premier League football or an England player is probably the pinnacle of pressure. 

Johnnie Lowery 06:23

I don't think we can ever really put ourselves in their shoes and understand quite what it's like in the position we're in. So that pressure is immense. And, you know, people have different ways of dealing with it. 

Johnnie Lowery 06:37

Some players will struggle with it. It's why I think it's really important for clubs to have the right support for their players, not just for their mental health, but actually for their performance. 

Johnnie Lowery 06:47

Right. Ultimately, if you want to win games of football, I think it's now recognized that mental health is important to do that. It's not just getting on the training ground, you know, who's technically the best, who's physically the best, you actually need to be mentally the best as well, which is becoming more of the accepted sort of norm. 

Johnnie Lowery 07:06

Equally, there are probably issues that players face as you get towards the say the bottom of professional football's ladder or even into non -league. So there... I did a chapter on injury. Injury can be devastating. 

Johnnie Lowery 07:22

Whatever level you're playing at, it can be career ending, it can essentially put you out of a job when your contract's up. Lower league football, you're generally unsure to contracts. So certainly, you know, my club Sutton will generally offer a maximum of a two year contract, usually a one year contract. 

Johnnie Lowery 07:39

You're not earning a huge amount of money at that level as well. So you get injured halfway through the season, you're on a one year contract, and you don't know where your next paycheck is going to come from. 

Johnnie Lowery 07:49

You get to June and all of a sudden, where are you, you know, where are you earning? If you've broken your leg, who's going to employ you? So that's very tough for players. Non -league level, you get players that are actually on essentially pay as you play non contract deals. 

Johnnie Lowery 08:05

So I've spoken to someone who he did his ACL playing in the seventh tier of English football. And as soon as he was out injured, that was it. He wasn't getting paid anymore. He's self employed in his part time job. 

Johnnie Lowery 08:18

So he then he couldn't work. So he's gone from having income from two jobs to nothing. So then it was only really his insurance. It's a company called Our Game, which is one of the initiatives in the lower leagues basically to help players through that basically bailed him out of that situation. 

Johnnie Lowery 08:38

So yeah, specific challenges there at the top bands, the sort of lower reaches, and then stages of your career as well. So younger players, I forget the numbers off the top of my head, but the percentage of players or kids basically that go into academies and then make it pro is tiny. 

Johnnie Lowery 08:55

I mean, it's basically basically no one, you might be the best player in your school, the best player in your town, but it's very unlikely, unfortunately, that you're going to be the best player in the country or even for the team you're playing for. 

Johnnie Lowery 09:09

So then you have so many kids going through the system thinking they're going to be professional footballers, preparing for life as a professional footballer and actually very few of them do. So then what do they do with themselves when they've left the game and most of them stop playing altogether. 

Johnnie Lowery 09:26

A few drop down to League One, League Two, non -league, a lot of them just stop. So that's a big issue for football as a whole. And then retirement as well. I've got a chapter on retirement in my book, because even players at the top level where you think they're earning hundreds of thousand pounds a week and they don't need to work again, well maybe financially, but you need to do something. 

Johnnie Lowery 09:51

If you're retired aged 30s you can't sort of sit around. I think Marcus Bent, who I spoke to you for much, he said you can't go on holiday for the rest of your life because it does get and it sounds kind of crazy if you're working an office job and you look forward to your holidays, but if you're doing nothing but going on holiday you're going to lose a sense of purpose, I guess. 

Johnnie Lowery 10:14

Then even at the lower leagues, again it's the financial thing. If you're earning a couple of thousand pounds a week it's pretty good money, let's not pretend it isn't, but if it only lasts until you're 30 and you need to get another job actually that's quite difficult. 

Johnnie Lowery 10:29

So yeah, lots of things that footballers need to be aware of throughout their career and regardless of the level they're playing at as well. 

Francesco Belcastro 10:36

It's interesting you mentioned that because we had- a few weeks ago- an episode with Paul Campbell that discussed some of the challenges from a point of view of education in his work, but many of the challenges you were mentioning in terms of players retiring in particular are the same ones that Paul spoke to. 

Francesco Belcastro 10:55

So we encourage listeners to go and check that out. Guy, you had a burning question. 

Guy Burton 11:00

Actually, what Johnny just mentioned about both at the start and the end of their careers: those chapters really stood out for me in the book. We know the footballers that do make it, but because so many don't make it at the start, and then of course for those who have made it, a lot of them have sacrificed their education and have been brought up in this very traditional focus on football -only path, and then they got left for them. 

Guy Burton 11:31

And I wondered, maybe you could tell us a little bit about what do these players find? I mean, are we finding that the clubs have a duty of care, are looking after these players, whether at the start or at the end? 

Guy Burton 11:44

What changes are happening in this regard? 

Johnnie Lowery 11:48

At academy level, there are a few things that are starting to be put into place from what I can see. So I know I think Liverpool and Tottenham off the top of my head are particularly good at tracking the players they let go, following up on them. 

Johnnie Lowery 12:04

If they need any help or advice, they can go to the club, which I think is great. I spoke to Pete Lowe in the book who he'd been at Manchester City. He said in it, it actually made a lot of sense. I didn't think of it before I spoke to him. 

Johnnie Lowery 12:19

But the important thing isn't what you do after you've released the young player. It's how you deal with them before, how you prepare them. So if you bring a load of kids in and you tell them all, you're going to be a professional footballer, focus on your football and nothing else, you're lying to them. 

Johnnie Lowery 12:35

And it's not going to prepare the majority of them for life outside of the game. Whereas if you encourage them to have outside interests, you tell them, OK, you could be a footballer, but also you could be a doctor or a lawyer, or you could work in whatever you want to do. 

Johnnie Lowery 12:51

I don't know, that's two professions off the top of my head. And I think he mentioned that there are clubs now, every club you'd expect to see pictures on the wall of players from that academy that have made it to the first team. 

Johnnie Lowery 13:04

Of course, it goes without saying. But actually, you could have a picture on the wall of someone who got let go by the academy, but now they're doing very well in whatever industry they're in now. Ellis Myles, who I spoke to, he got let go by Leicester, and he said the only people that would ever come in and give talks were successful players. 

Johnnie Lowery 13:23

Oh, actually, that's not particularly helpful in practice for those that get let go. So actually, could you have someone like him go in and give talks? I think it's such a waste of what he's got to say, really, if he isn't. 

Johnnie Lowery 13:38

He's fascinating to speak to. One of my favourite interviews in the book, really, just to go in and say, yeah, this is what I did wrong. This is what you need to avoid. This is what I've done right since, for the listeners, I don't know the backstory, he got let go by Leicester, went to prison for dealing drugs, basically got to let go. 

Johnnie Lowery 14:01

And he's just completely turned his life around playing non -league football. I think he's got a kid now. Lovely guy just fell into the wrong crowd when he got let go by Leicester in it. But his story of what he did wrong, what he's done right, I think it'll be much more helpful for most kids in an academy than getting, I think it's Emil Hesky and Gary Lineker probably to stand out from Leicester. 

Johnnie Lowery 14:23

So that stuff like that, you know, that's, I think that's the way to help these younger players. And then players that are in their 30s, in terms of what clubs do, basically, not a lot. Once a player is retired, generally, that's it, as far as the club will be involved. 

Johnnie Lowery 14:40

Again, though, it comes down to education whilst the player is still playing. It's very hard to prepare yourself for retirement when you're already in your 30s. Because, I mean, one, you don't actually know when you're going to retire, usually when your body stops you from playing anymore, or you stop getting offers from clubs. 

Johnnie Lowery 14:59

Once you get to a certain point, that will be, you know, that will become the case. So you've really got to be prepared earlier. It should be, I mean, it should really be encouraged that players are studying, necessarily a degree, but a vocational course, I'm an engineer, whatever, to have something that they can, yeah, to go into when they finish playing. 

Johnnie Lowery 15:24

And that has to start from early rather than when they're already approaching retirement, and it becomes a sort of last -ditch thing. 

Francesco Belcastro 15:34

Yeah, we spoke about players and it's very interesting, but I was wondering, what's what have you found out talking about supporters, because I would assume that sort of fans provide a sort of social network and, and, kind of, there is a being together that it's connected to supporting a football club going on away matches, at home. 

Francesco Belcastro 15:56

But obviously also creates an environment or it's, it's assumed to be an environment in which perhaps is not easy to talk about mental health. So what's the situation with with supporters in relation to mental health? 

Johnnie Lowery 16:09

Yeah. Again, I think you're right. I think traditionally the football crowd has been seen as very macho, similar to the way the dressing room might be. I've actually found that with my fellow Sutton United fans, it's been very easy to talk about mental health. 

Johnnie Lowery 16:27

And I think the reason is once you get behind the superficiality of, or how you might think a group looks once you're within the group. Football is an incredible bond. You feel like a band of brothers, I think. 

Johnnie Lowery 16:42

There's a guy from Bournemouth I spoke to. When he said football, football gets criticized for being tribal. And a lot of the time, it's kind of fair enough, like there are negatives to the tribalism of football. 

Johnnie Lowery 16:58

But there are also positives to it. In the sense that your fellow supporters, you will back them through anything almost, you know. So if I'm struggling with my mental health, my mates from Sutton are going to be there for me no matter what. 

Johnnie Lowery 17:15

It's that sort of undying loyalty. And it's brought, you're all brought together by your football club. Being there every Saturday, it gives you that chance to speak to people. If you're worried about someone, you can catch up with them. 

Johnnie Lowery 17:29

I know I'm going to see my mates every Saturday afternoon with Sutton. So it's nice. It's a really good form of community. So I think it certainly helped in my mental health. And that was the gist of what's happening down at Bournemouth as well. 

Johnnie Lowery 17:42

They've got a specific group set up called Talking Cherries. So football fans, people that support Bournemouth get together specifically to talk about mental health, which I think is great. They've got the community there already. 

Johnnie Lowery 17:55

Why not make the most of it? And yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. 

Francesco Belcastro 17:58

Could I ask you, then the problem could be in this case, and maybe it's not specific to football, but when people, for whatever reason, stop going to football, have to move, get a different job, could that be the point where sort of things could get worse from a mental health point of view, just because you lose that kind of points of reference? 

Johnnie Lowery 18:21

Yeah, I think change is always difficult. Certainly something I know I struggle with. I mean, football community as well doesn't always necessarily have to be, you know, your local team. I'm very lucky that I've, I've grown up near a side where I've just fell in love with it. 

Johnnie Lowery 18:41

I think football community, one of the main forms of community is on an international level. There's research in Soccernomics, where they looked at the suicide rates in countries. And they actually fell when that country was playing in a major international tournament. 

Johnnie Lowery 18:57

You think when England are playing, you know, the office chat. And it's just like, you know, you've even people that just don't care about football, never been interested in football. And everyone will will sort of have a something to say on it, you know, pretty much everyone will pay attention to it. 

Johnnie Lowery 19:18

And it's just an automatic, even if it's just, you know, for a few fleeting seconds, that sense of community, it does bring people together. Even with club teams, if you support, if I if I'm, you know, if I ever move away to Australia, whatever, I know, randomly, that there are some Sutton fans in Australia, the first people I'm going to reach out to when I get to Australia are going to be these people from Sutton, I'm going to stick, you know, I'm going to stay in touch with people from Sutton whilst I'm out there. 

Johnnie Lowery 19:50

And probably the main reason I'm going to do that is to talk about football. So it will always bring you together, whether you're a mile away from the club, you support 1000 miles away. So I'd encourage anyone to always to bear that in mind, no matter where you are in the world. 

Johnnie Lowery 20:06

I think it's a cliche, but the football club will always will always stay with you wherever you go. So yeah. 

Francesco Belcastro 20:13

If listeners got advices on good Australian clubs to support in case any of us moves there then you could go to the football as well. Guy?

Guy Burton 20:21

I mean, there is a chapter or two that you have in your book about, you know, community. And so, you know, other people are using football as a means of, you know, supporting their mental health. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about some of those groups that you came across there that go beyond, you know, professional players and managers and supporters to talk about, you know, community groups more generally. 

Johnnie Lowery 20:44

Yeah, so I think there's some good examples on the playing side, the grassroots football. So yeah, we think about football, and we're generally thinking about the top level, but so many people play this sport. 

Johnnie Lowery 20:56

I mean, I play on a Wednesday night, I'm pretty terrible. There's a level for everyone, I guess is my point. Football therapy is becoming a concept. It's the idea that, I guess, exercise in general, your physical activity releases endorphins, you feel better, very simple concepts. 

Johnnie Lowery 21:15

But football being a team sport, you get that kind of extra dynamic, you've got teammates, you're working together with people, there's the social side. So yeah, there are a couple of teams that I looked at. 

Johnnie Lowery 21:28

So one, Beder FC, they're a charity set up in memory of someone who sadly took their own life. They're a fantastic charity, and they do lots of things. So check them out. They're doing some really good stuff in the mental health awareness and suicide prevention space. 

Johnnie Lowery 21:48

And one of the things is a football team. I've played against them a few times with my own side, and they've got a couple of ex pros play for them. So they can certainly look after themselves on the pitch. 

Johnnie Lowery 22:00

But yeah, so it's a mental health friendly team. So everyone that plays for them, you're welcomed into group chat. I mean, they're good, but the standard of players is very mixed. And, you know, if, say, if I were to play for them, I'd probably be their worst player, but they wouldn't care. 

Johnnie Lowery 22:19

Like, I'd be welcomed in, and it's all friendly. And you go to the club bar after they play at Dorking Wanderers is a National League ground. Because the Surrey FA own it, and they're in partnership with the Surrey FA. 

Johnnie Lowery 22:33

So the facilities, they've got a top notch, you get to play alongside a couple of ex pros who have spoken a lot about mental health of good mental health advocates. So Marvin Sordell, Matthew Briggs, the two that I play against. 

Johnnie Lowery 22:46

Yeah, and it's just a way to check in on people to enjoy football without the competitive pressures you get. Even like a seven aside league, you can get very competitive. Whereas this is a more chilled out version. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:02

What's the club called again, Johnnie? Sorry, could you remind our listeners? 

Johnnie Lowery 23:04

Yeah, yeah. So it's Beder. B -E -D -E -R. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:08

Okay, we can put a link to the in the episode Guy? 

Guy Burton 23:11

Yeah. 

Johnnie Lowery 23:12

Absolutely. I mean, my book Match Fit is it's in partnership with Beder as well. So a certain percentage of the profits are going to the charity. So you can find actually, there's a logo on the on the back of the book. And yeah, they've been really supportive and really, really good people. 

Francesco Belcastro 23:30

But I asked two things, actually. One, are there any developments around this topic of mental health that we have not mentioned that the listeners should check out? And then could you remind us where listeners can find your book if they want to find out more about this? 

Francesco Belcastro 23:44

And then I think Guy has got a question because I see he's agitated! So I knew he was particularly keen on this topic, so I'm sure he's got another question, Johnnie. 

Johnnie Lowery 23:54

Yeah, I mean, there's there's loads of stuff going on. I'll try and keep it fairly short. So I've mentioned a few of the things I've looked at in the book. So you've obviously got the PFA have got a well-being department, the LMA have support for managers. I guess that's what you'd call like the core support that's there for anyone that's played professionally managed professionally, good support. 

Johnnie Lowery 24:18

Hopefully they can keep funding it. Well, I'm really hoping that this independent regulator that's coming in will look at funding for mental health and football. I think it's an opportunity for football in England to kind of reset a little bit. 

Francesco Belcastro 24:33

Yeah

Johnnie Lowery 24:34

Certainly for some of the negative things. Football, football is in a relatively good position. But there's so much we can do better and mental health provision would be one. Then you've got more, I guess you call them grassroots organizations or more smaller developments really. 

Johnnie Lowery 24:53

So there's a few in the book. Up in Scotland, there's the the Chris Mitchell Foundation. Sadly, again, something that's been set up after someone's taken their own life. It's yeah, it's sad that it's come to that for these things to be set up. 

Johnnie Lowery 25:06

But they've got a policy where they want everyone within professional Scottish football clubs or the coaching staff to be trained around mental health awareness. So it's spotting the signs. There's quite a lot of onus within mental health is put on the person struggling to seek help. 

Johnnie Lowery 25:24

It's on them. The it's you know, if you're feeling down, make sure you speak to someone. And it's quite hard to know. And I certainly know I've been through this. Like at what point do I need help? Or what point am I? 

Johnnie Lowery 25:36

Because I might feel like a burden on someone I might feel like I sometimes struggle to legitimize your own struggles, which is yeah, you know, it's it's a weird concept. But it you know, I get people go through that. 

Johnnie Lowery 25:50

And everyone's struggle is legitimate, by the way. But it's just hard to, you know, certainly I've struggled to get my head around it. But if you've got staff at these clubs that are trained to spot the signs, it just takes the pressure and the onus off the player to speak up if someone notices he's been quiet. 

Johnnie Lowery 26:07

I'll ask him if he's okay. I think that's a great thing to have. So they're doing some great work up in Scotland. On the retirement side, there's a an organization called life after professional sports run by a former player Robbie Simpson, like he's the manager at Chelmsford City now. 

Johnnie Lowery 26:26

And he's a financial advisor, so he keeps busy! But yeah, they just have lots of practical advice. So if you're a professional player, you can create an account on there. There's lots of stuff about transferable skills, you know, because there's certain things if you're a good footballer, you've probably got a lot of dedication, you've worked hard, you can work well under pressure. 

Johnnie Lowery 26:47

And it's taking these skills and finding another job with them, basically. So that's really good as well. So that's just some of the stuff that's out there. There's more that's in the book, there's more that I haven't put in the book. 

Johnnie Lowery 26:59

The more people realize that mental health, mental health is important. But also, like I mentioned earlier, you actually get better results on the football pitch. There's like a double incentive. And the more that becomes obvious, the more support is going to be out there. 

Johnnie Lowery 27:17

Again, the funding question is vital. We'll see where we go with this regulator. And hopefully we'll keep progressing towards, I suppose, the ultimate goal where mental health is seen as important as physical. 

Francesco Belcastro 27:31

And what can listeners find your book Johnnie? Can you remind us? 

Johnnie Lowery 27:35

Yeah, sure. So, Amazon, Waterstones, if you just search Match Fit, it will probably come up. If you put my name in there, it will come up. I've actually got a website as well, which is johnnielowery.co.uk. 

Johnnie Lowery 27:49

So you can check out all of my all of my stuff on there, everything that I've done and hopefully some some future stuff at some point as well. So keep an eye out. 

Guy Burton 27:57

Yeah. Speaking of which, can we ask you a little bit about that? I mean, if you're working on anything in particular that we can keep an eye out for?

Johnnie Lowery 28:05

Yeah, so during lockdown, I guess everyone had a lockdown project in mind. Do you remember when there was all the weird rules and you couldn't go to elite football, but you could go to non -elite. And yeah, so there's a competition called the FA Vase for ninth tier teams and below. 

Johnnie Lowery 28:25

And I decided I'll go to a game in every round up to Wembley. It was like a Road to Wembley thing. And it became quite, yeah, I really enjoyed writing it. If you've ever read It's the Far Corner by Harry Pearson, it's kind of like that, but in COVID and yeah. 

Guy Burton 28:43

Was that the one with where he went round by round through the FA Cup? I think because I remember reading one about you know, 10, 15... 10, 12 years ago. 

Johnnie Lowery 28:53

He went around the the various non -league grounds of the northeast. It wasn't um... It, yeah, it was just... completely random yeah more or less, but a fantastic read i mean i'm sure he's written it much better than I wrote mine. 

Guy Burton 29:05

So where did you go? I mean which grounds... Who did you go and watch?

Johnnie Lowery 29:10

Oh a bit of a memory test a few years ago! I think I was at Sutton Common Rovers at one point because they were at Sutton's ground. I ended up in Malvern Town which was lovely. I just wanted to get out, climb for hills, saw the areas quite nice. 

Johnnie Lowery 29:26

Got to the Wembley Final. We were at Warrington for the semi -final. I'll be here all day if I went through some of the stories that came up. I had family in the northeast so I went to a few up there: Whitley Bay, Durham City I think it was, when they were getting battered 10-0 every week. 

Johnnie Lowery 29:45

They lost 4-0 and it was a good result for them! Yeah various, I think, Hadley. 

Guy Burton 29:51

And when will this be coming out? 

Johnnie Lowery 29:54

I'm not sure yet, so I haven't got a publisher for it. It's probably not as marketable as Match Fit is, but certainly probably not as mainstream, very niche. I may end up self -publishing it. I may look to see if there's a kind of publisher like the company that published my first one that will cater to, I guess, that niche audience. 

Johnnie Lowery 30:17

So keep an eye out, no timelines for it, yeah, but I say I wrote it years ago and I've been sitting on it while I've been working on Match Fit, so it's ready to go whenever I get the right way to do it really. 

Francesco Belcastro 30:29

If any publisher is listening we've got a book here! 

Guy Burton 30:32

Yeah, exactly. Hopefully that's the pitch!

Guy Burton 30:35

Well, listen, Johnnie, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, and we wish you all the success with Match Fit as it goes forward. I mean, obviously, it's been out for a few months now, but if listeners would like to get a hold of a copy, I'm sure you'll be well rewarded. 

Guy Burton 30:50

I mean, I read it. I learned a lot. So thanks, Johnnie, for coming in and speaking to us. 

Johnnie Lowery 30:56

Thank you for having me on. Much appreciated.

Francesco Belcastro 30:58

Thank you, Johnnie. Thank you. 

Guy Burton 31:00

And Francesco, I guess before we leave, we have to do the usual kind of things, don't we? 

Francesco Belcastro 31:06

Yeah, we have to remind listeners to like, rate, tweet, share. I don't know if Johnnie knows it, but you're trying to buy Aldershot Town. So we need to get rich with the podcast! So eventually... And now that we know what Johnnie told us, Aldershot Town is going to be a mental health friendly team because you have learned about that. 

Francesco Belcastro 31:27

So you can, you can put this into practice when you buy the club. 

Guy Burton 31:30

Well, I mean, it's not a place that you necessarily want to go if you want to sort of recover,  let's put it that way! It's. it's tough. So, but anyway, yeah. So, and of course, where can so, yeah, people, people should get in touch with us. 

Guy Burton 31:41

But where can they find us, Francesco? 

Francesco Belcastro 31:43

Well, everywhere. You are everywhere on social media. I'm a bit less, but you are... We are both on Twitter. We've got a football page on Twitter, on Facebook, on Blue Sky. You are on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn, but I'm not really on LinkedIn. 

Francesco Belcastro 32:01

Yeah. And then what else? 

Guy Burton 32:03

We've got Instagram as well. We have an Instagram account.

Francesco Belcastro 32:06

We've got Instagram as well. So yeah, so the important thing is people get in touch with us and tell us what episode we should be doing, what topics, countries of the world they would like to listen to more about. 

Francesco Belcastro 32:17

And also, like, can I... I did this a few weeks ago? Can I thank again all listeners and guests that suggested episodes and topics with some of the most interesting topics have been not our idea, but someone else's suggestion. 

Francesco Belcastro 32:32

So we're really grateful for that and please keep doing that. 

Guy Burton 32:35

Yeah. Okay, great. Well, once again, thanks, Francesco. Good talking to you. And again, Johnnie, thank you for taking the time to speak to us. See you guys. Bye. 

Francesco Belcastro 32:44

Bye -bye.