Mike's Story

Freddy Adu, Cherno Samba, Taribo West. You name a Championship Manager/Football Manager wonderkid and I can guarantee I signed him. If I wasn’t kicking a ball about as a teenager I was glued to a computer screen racking up football management simulation hours; perfecting my latest formation, tweaking training programmes and scouting South American youth teams for talent to take to Premier League and European glory - it was, undoubtedly, a bit of an addiction.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the only addiction I was battling. As I struggled with my mental health in my teens and early 20s I developed an almost entirely unhealthy relationship with food. I played football and squash a couple of times a week, swam or hit the gym almost daily and cycled everywhere so the fact that my eating was so out of control went under the radar for a few years.

By the time I left Uni and started work I was putting away a mind boggling amount of calories a day and so when exercise started to drop down my list of priorities I started to pile on the pounds. By the time I was diagnosed with an eating disorder and started treatment at an ED clinic I weighed over 24 stone. 

In September last year (weighing in at about 25 stone) I started to play football with MANWELL. I hadn’t played in years and, to be honest, I pushed myself too hard and picked up a couple of injuries in my very first game. I was gutted and just wanted to give up. But I found out quickly that MANWELL was about more than just playing football - I got messages from four or five of the lads encouraging me to stick at it and it gave me the courage to keep going. 

Since then I’ve gone on to be discharged from the Eating Disorder clinic, taken the decision to undergo gastric sleeve surgery and lost over four and a half stone. But more importantly I’ve made a group of mates who have supported me through the entire process and now I’m part of the team developing MANWELL’s Weight Loss Football League. 

I’m healthier, happier and more able to do the things I want to do, whether it’s playing football or running round after my kids and, perhaps most importantly of all, I’m finally getting to put all those years of Football Manager experience to practical use!