As MindWise look forward to the year ahead, during which we will implement our new five year business plan and launch two new and innovatory projects to support young people and older people at risk off or experiencing mental health problems, we cannot lose sight of the impact of the stigma and discrimination experience by those affected by severe and enduring mental illness.

Please see below for an excellent article written by football journalist Daniel Storey, which I believe provides significant insights into the negativity experienced and the subsequent detrimental social and economic benefits lost as a result – even to the perceived most fortunate in modern day society. MindWise commit to lobbying and campaigning against the stigma and discrimination many of our beneficiaries’ experience. We will heighten our activity in this area over the coming year, but we cannot do this alone. Our membership, service users, carers, staff and volunteers all have a role to play, collectively we really can make a difference, and perhaps then the year ahead will be more prosperous than we can hope to dream! Your thoughts and comments on this subject are welcomed as always.

Bill Halliday

CEO, MindWise

"Ignorance of Mental Illness is not bliss" by Daniel Storey.

The football dressing room is the sporting haven of machismo, bravado and testosterone. Imagine if you suffered from depression. It's one of football's final taboos

Sat in a pub with a few mates, there is little that football fans like more than to discuss and disagree upon a club's worst signing. From Rafael Scheidt to Ali Dia, we all have our hapless, hopeless heroes. West Ham fans, possibly to their warped pleasure, can spend longer than most on such an argument: Marco Boogers, Kieron Dyer and Florin Raducioiu to name but three.

However, the winner of such an uncoveted award may be young Savio Nsereko. In January 2009, the Ugandan-born German striker was bought for a fee of £9million from Brescia. Given the number 10 shirt at Upton Park and aged just 19, pressure and expectation was heaped on Savio to assist a side that were eighth in the Premier League but had scored just 29 goals in 22 games.

The transfer was a disaster. Nsereko started just one game for the Hammers, failing to score a single goal for the club. He was sold for an undisclosed fee to Fiorentina, from whom he has been loaned out to four different clubs without scoring a league goal. He now resides at Juve Stabia in Italy's Serie B.

However this is not simply a story of a young player caught in the limelight, failing to fulfil his potential through complacency and an addiction to fame, alcohol or sex. A fortnight ago Savio went missing for the second time in the last 12 months. Whilst it could be assumed that this was typical prima donna behaviour, evidence of a more tragic interpretation has appeared, pointing to a mental disturbance in Savio's character.

In many ways, mental illness is the last taboo in football. Relevant authorities have made significant attempts and progress in highlighting such issues as homophobia and racism, and rightly so, but players with mental instability, sickness and depression still feel that they are left alone to deal with their troubles.

Players that receive homophobic and racial abuse are front and back-page news in our society of attempted equality, and the issue of black managers has reared its head again recently as an example. But let me ask you a question: Do you remember Sebastian Deisler?

The German international was acquired by Bayern Munich in 2002, and despite having previously suffered serious knee injuries, was portrayed by club and country as the 'next big thing'. Such statements hung like an albatross around the neck of Deisler, and after more injuries he crumbled under the pressure. By January 2007 he was in a clinic being treated for severe depression and had retired from the game. And yet this is not particularly common knowledge, and neither are other cases such as Jonathan Macari, Dale Roberts or Eddie McCreadie. Perhaps the only high-profile case of footballing mental illness is Paul Gascoigne, and even that is seen as a joke.

The commercialisation of football has enlarged our demand for success, and the increase in player wages to extortionate levels means that managers, fans and the media insist on approaching perfection. In metaphorical terms, the spotlight on our players has become stronger, brighter and more focused. If a forward misses a chance we question his parentage and legitimacy in the strongest verbal terms. If he scores, the opposition supporters do the same. And moreover, we see any potential negativity as illogical: "How can a rich man doing something we crave to do not be happy?"

Whilst it is evident that footballers are in a privileged position, this surely does not alter their mental stability or propensity for breakdown. Do increased wages make you a mentally stronger person?

The issue has finally been broached, largely due to the suicide in 2009 of German international keeper Robert Enke. The 32-year-old had been receiving treatment for depression for up to six years before his death. His doctor, Valentin Markser, claims that the German's depression had developed through a "fear of failure", and credited this concern above the loss of his daughter three years earlier.

In response, The PFA has issued a book to every league footballer entitled The Footballer's Guidebook, which offers advice to players on subjects such as depression, mental illness and coping with injuries. It will at least hope to remove a degree of the unmentionable of metal instability within the football dressing room, the sporting haven of machismo, bravado and testosterone.

We live in a sporting society where the mantra of 'big boys don't cry' rules supreme, and football is the pinnacle of such an attitude. We will never stop the goading and taunting from the terraces, but our national attitude must improve. To quote an example from an alternate sport, when Frank Bruno was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, the Sun ran the headline 'Bonkers Bruno'. I think my point is clear. Ignorance cannot be considered bliss.

If a footballer is labelled as a poof for shirking a 50:50 challenge by 60,000 people, what are the chances of him admitting that he cries himself to sleep every night? Just because someone is paid handsomely for a career we would kill for does not change them from human to robot. Humans should never be ashamed of emotion.

Daniel Storey. Twitterise him @Daniel_OTP