"Freestyle Football Fanatic Takes To Wembley Stadium" : Manisha Tailor

No Clash Of Colours are again very pleased to add another feature written by one of our followers on twitter, Manisha Tailor [@ManishaTailor1]. Manisha has written three previous articles which have received excellent comments and have proved extremely popular amongst our readers.  This is her latest article, enjoy and leave a comment.

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Freestyle Football Fanatic Takes To Wembley Stadium 

“Don’t Call Me Crazy”, a hard hitting and true account of young people suffering from a diverse range of mental health problems.  “Don’t Call Me Crazy”, illustrates lives of inpatients’ at a teenage mental health unit. “Don’t Call Me Crazy”, a mental health awareness season produced by the BBC.  “Don’t Call Me Crazy”, something Football Freestyler Matt Wolstenholme knows all about.

Matt Wolstenholme, a 31 year old Londoner, suffered from depression; therefore raising awareness of Mental Health and supporting associated charities is extremely close to his heart. At present he is gearing up to do keepy-uppies around the perimeter of Wembley Stadium BUT whilst walking BACKWARDS (I can’t even do this whilst ‘walking’, let alone walk backwards!)  

Wolstenholme currently holds the world record for ‘longest distance juggling a football’ at 20km, and will perform the challenging feat on August 16th to raise money for Health Charity ‘MIND’. ‘Mind’ provides a valuable source of support and advice.  Please visit : click here > MIND to find out more. 

Speaking from personal experience Wolstenholme said:  “Depression is something I’ve struggled with for a number of years, so I know from personal experience how debilitating mental illness can be.  It’s a pleasure to be able to raise money for Mind”.

On how he is feeling towards the upcoming challenge:  “I’m really excited about the challenge – it’s not something you do every day. Luckily I’ll have a few people there to help make sure I don’t walk into anything!” (We hope so too!) 

Wolstenholme, who also works as a personal trainer, played football to a high standard up until suffering a back injury in his early 20’s.  Once recovered, he took to the park to brush up on his skills and has been a freestyle football fanatic ever since!  Matt is currently training five days a week for his latest challenge, showing great dedication and commitment.  “I’m working hard to make sure it all goes smoothly. Lots of practice sessions with the ball, as well as workouts at the gym to make sure I’m fit enough and can maintain my concentration”.

He added:  “I couldn’t have arranged this by myself though, it’s important to thank all the people who helped, especially Wembley Stadium for allowing me to give this weird and wonderful challenge a try.  I can’t wait to get going now, bring it on!”

To make a donation towards Matt’s charity challenge please visit click here > Matt Freestyle and click on the JustGiving icon.  

You can also follow Matt on twitter : [@matwolstenholme] and Facebook : [Mattwolstenholme1]

I would like to wish Matt all the very best for his upcoming charity challenge!  You’ll smash it!