Mark Sansom Bio – From the Rec to the Racecourse

Hi, all my name is Mark Sansom, I am 48 years old and live in a town called Braintree in Essex.

As a young child, I loved playing football and I would be out from dusk till dawn most weekends, and every opportunity after school we were out kicking a ball somewhere.

At the age of 15, I was asked if I wanted to get involved in helping a friend coaching a youth team for an amazing local club called Great Bradfords, the club I had played for as an u10. I loved it, for me, it was better than playing! At 16yrs old I started coaching and managing my own team for Bradfords and I have never looked back. I went on to manage Braintree Town F.C Reserves and become the most successful manager they ever had winning 5 trophies in one season and then this led to my managing career highlight so far!

With two games left in the 2014/15 season, I had the proudest of moments to become Caretaker Manager of Braintree Town F.C. First team in the National League Prem Division, first game in charge away to Wrexham at the Racecourse Ground, the coach trip there is hard to remember as the butterflies in my stomach were out of this world but I will never turn my back on a challenge and they don’t come much bigger than this one, the away trip to Wrexham didn’t have the fairy tale ending I hoped for so then we went back to Clockhouse Way 25th April 2015, I was at home with a once in a lifetime opportunity, to walk out in charge of my home town team, one of the proudest days of my life, you want to know the result you’ll have to google it.

My current job role is Head of Operations for a Social Enterprise Called CIG 2022 C.I.C. I started this company following my redundancy in April 2022. My previous role for 10 and a half years was running a very successful charity called Community Iron I loved my job as it had so much variety, whether we were coaching in schools or running holiday camps we are working with different people daily and hopefully helping them to enjoy what we are doing. My new company will be looking to emulate this by running two Soccability sides along with Walking Football sides, as well as working in the Community to support the Mental Wellbeing for all.

During my time at Community Iron I have taken a team to Wembley and won, Lyons Hall School became Braintree Town having won a local tournament, so we took them national, Braintree won the NLT u’11 tournament going through it unbeaten and playing on Wembley’s hallow turf in 2017.

Whilst I have been in my role here, I have been extremely fortunate to become an Adult Mental Health First Aider and a Youth Mental Health First Aider and took it one step further and Become a Youth Mental Health Instructor.

Why would someone who loves coaching and management so much become a Mental Health Instructor??

When I was 15 years old my mum lost her battle against Leukaemia, as you can appreciate at 15 this rocked my world. I really struggled with school through this period and this was my last year so my exams suffered due to my Mental Health.

I have lived with ill Mental Health for over 30 years however determination to make my mum proud has pushed me on in everything I do, I want to make a difference, I didn’t feel that anyone understood what I was going through or how I felt, now is our time to show our young people, our young players, students, or even our own children, we do understand and although we might not be able to take away all the pain we can have the knowledge to know what to do next.

That is why I became an instructor and that is why Mental Health First Aid Training in the Community was formed, to give people the right knowledge, the empathy and most importantly the vision to see the signs of a change in behaviour, or attitude which will allow us to intervene early and help our young people on their own journey of recovery.

Covid-19 will leave a trail long after we have all had a vaccine, the confidence in understanding Mental Health is like a vaccine of its own, as coaches we are all taught Emergency Aid, well Mental
Health First Aid allows you to look after our young people’s Mental Health as well as the physical health skills that you already have.

Thanks for reading and hopefully together we can make a difference.

Mark Sansom