Niamh Charles is joining Common Goal to support its mental health movement, ‘Create The Space’. 

The England and Chelsea left-back joins several other players, including England compatriots Ben Chilwell and Beth Mead, in Common Goal’s fight to tackle society’s mental health crisis. 

At just 24-years-old, Charles has already won three Women’s Super League titles and just as many FA cups with Chelsea, lifted the first-ever Women’s Finalissima trophy and reached the Women’s World Cup final with the Lionesses. They say pressure makes diamonds and although Charles stays shining on the pitch, she’s joined Common Goal to explain how her light can sometimes dim off it. A feeling she understands everyone experiences but doesn’t always feel confident expressing - something she wants to change by helping to ‘Create The Space’ for mental health discussions. 

By committing 1% of her salary to Common Goal, Charles will actively work with the organisation to help ensure everyone in football can express themselves freely when it comes to mental health. ‘Create The Space’ has encouraged Charles to step forward and share her own experiences in a bid to create a better mental health culture in football and beyond. 

VERSUS sat down with Charles to discuss the importance of humanising footballers, how the leadership of Emma Hayes and Sarina Wiegman has created positive mental health cultures, and why finding interests outside of football helps to manage the game’s high intensity. 

You’ve spoken about humanising players and normalising conversations around mental health, especially for young people. You’re still a very young person and player in the grand scheme of things! You’re also part of a generation that had to navigate and grow up during COVID. How do you think that period of time affected people’s mental health?

When you discuss it, there was definitely the footballer-side and the human-side of me that had challenges with that - because of the age I was during COVID. It was quite isolating at times in all honesty, as it was for everyone. Having a lot of time on your own, that was when I realised looking after your mental health is something you need to put time into and prioritise.

‍You have to operate at such extremes as a player - epic losses, epic wins. How do you remain level headed?

Part of it is normal to me because I’ve been in the professional game for a number of years now, but when I do take a step back and think about things like that - the level of intensity we work at - it’s something that all high performance athletes have to experience.

It’s really important for us, when we do have rest days and time away from the sport, that we take time to be a person as well as a footballer. You need to give both your body and mind time to rest fully. It’s really important to find what gives you energy; you need to find those ‘things’ to help with your rest and recovery. That’s something I’ve worked on these past few years, getting to know myself more as a person not just a footballer. That way, you’re not living at this constant high level of intensity. I think being able to say “sometimes I don’t feel great” or “I tried this and it didn’t work” it’s a constant journey and learning process when it comes to mental recovery. If talking about mental health was an easy thing for everyone to do, we wouldn't be having a conversation about it. 

‍An ongoing topic of conversation in the women’s game is ACL damage. In your opinion, how do physical injuries affect athletes’ mental health? 

Long term injuries in general definitely affect mental health. I’ve had personal experiences of it and that’s what kick-started my mental health journey. I was feeling certain emotions and I didn’t have the right words or experiences to identify what those feelings were. When I was at university, I did my dissertation on the psychological impact of long term injury because it was so personal to me. When you go into physio everyday on your road to recovery it’s always, “how’s your knee? How’s your back? How’s this part of your body?” mental health isn’t given the same space or time to be spoken about. 

‍You’ve been trained by two of the best coaches in football: Emma Hayes and Sarina Wiegman. How important is good leadership in creating a healthy environment for people’s mental health?

That’s what leadership is all about: you set the tones and set the norms. If it’s (mental health) given priority from the coaches, that becomes the norm and both Emma and Sarina are both advocates for openly discussing how people are feeling. They’re big believers in, ‘you’re a footballer but you’re also a person’. That’s so important because you then feel at ease and okay in how you’re feeling. They’re high performing managers but they’re also people. They also have other things going on in their lives just like us, and that helps players massively - them being in touch with the importance of mental health. 

‍How have you managed the increased exposure the women’s game has received in recent years? There’s a lot of positives that come with that, but also a lot of negatives. 

It wasn’t one day I woke up and thought I suddenly needed to speak with someone, it is a constant journey and you get a little bit better at managing your emotions when it comes to things like this. I really struggled for a long time to speak openly about my mental health and now I’m at a point where I do feel more comfortable - and I’m really proud of that. I’ve said it already, but make sure you protect your energy and create relationships where you can talk about how you’re feeling. That’s how we normalise these conversations.

Find out more about Common Goal and their initiatives here.

Photography: @madeleine.penfold

VERSUS: What was it about Common Goal’s ‘Create The Space’ that spoke to you personally?

‍Niamh Charles: For a while now, I’ve loved the concept of Common Goal and wanted to join at some point. When I started to think about what I was passionate about and eventually spoke with the Common Goal team, they mentioned the ‘Create The Space’ initiative. They explained to me how it aligned perfectly with my passions, and so I thought it just made sense to contribute as the messaging around ‘Create The Space’ is amazing. Hopefully it will be a really powerful initiative that can help a lot of people. 

‍What is it you hope to achieve by joining this initiative?

The contributions I’ll be making as a Common Goal member will hopefully help a lot of people, and that is one side of it, but I also want to get involved from a personal point of view. Whether that means being more hands on and attending events and activations, or sharing my story a little more to hopefully help people. I think by doing that, it can help to normalise conversations around mental health - having people see ‘it’ as a part of everyday life for example, and not as something that’s ‘wrong’ with you. I want to get that idea across to people especially: everyone experiences mental health challenges, it’s totally normal, but it’s about making sure you’re equipped to work through them. 

‍I think that’s a really important term to use: humanising. Players are people, and people are very complex. A big part of our ‘makeup’ is our mental health and how we engage with it, something that’s different for everybody. 

‍In terms of players - specifically player care - do you have any opinions on what can be done to support them more with mental health? 

I think I have been really fortunate in that I’ve always felt very supported and had resources readily available to me as a player. But from a more general standpoint, not necessarily from a player perspective, growing up and becoming an adult you realise just how important your mental health is; it doesn’t matter what profession you have. 

As a player though, you go to training every week where you focus mainly on physical elements but what are you doing about your mental health? Making mental health more of a ‘normal’ conversation from when you’re young, it’s really important. When I got to the professional game, I was learning on the job as it were, but understanding the role of mental health on both your development as a player and a person should be prioritised when you’re a lot younger. Ideally, you want to improve your physical gameplay, technique and mental health awareness side-by-side. By doing that, it could even prevent or lessen some of the challenges you face along your way to the top. The obstacles you face, the pressure, the demands - you’d be better equipped at dealing with those things.