Welcome to the second episode of Lifting The Lid, here on the Official Emirates FA Cup podcast. The show, hosted by Tubes and Steve Sidwell explores the unique experience of taking part in the world’s oldest and best club competition.

For this show we got to speak to Blackburn, Ipswich and, most notably, Stoke legend Jonathan Walters about his life in Football, and perhaps the lesser known challenges he was dealing with off the field throughout his career and the big steps football needs to take to address mental health in the game. 

In an honest and inspiring conversation, Jonathan opens up about his own challenges, like losing his mother when he was still young, his daughter being born with gastroschisis, and his brother passing away young, and how he managed these pressures, and some of the interesting and, perhaps, unexpected places where he found help. We also talked about reaching the FA Cup Final with Stoke and what that meant for him and his career. 

Let's change the conversation around mental health. If you need to talk, these organisations can help you:

@heads_together: https://www.headstogether.org.uk/

@MindCharity: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-s...

@theCALMzone: https://www.thecalmzone.net/help/get-help/

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