Forest Green Rovers pilot urges Premier League to back football on prescription for depression

A pilot programme prescribing live football matches to patients with mild or moderate depression has drawn praise after its first year, with those behind it calling on the Premier League and Football League to lend their backing.

Launched in August 2025 at fifth-tier Gloucestershire club Forest Green Rovers, the “Football on Prescription” scheme was developed with support from Labour MP and GP Simon Opher (Stroud) and Dale Vince, the Ecotricity founder who owns the club. Under the initiative, GPs recommend complimentary match tickets as an alternative to antidepressants, with participants welcomed by regular supporters before kick-off.

Participants were most recently invited to attend Forest Green’s fixture against Hartlepool on Saturday, a match timed to coincide with World Mental Health Day.

The scheme sits within a broader push by Dr Opher to promote social prescribing over medication for those with less severe mental health conditions. He has previously prescribed comedy and gardening as alternative treatments, citing concerns about over-reliance on antidepressants. NHS figures show 9.1 million patients were prescribed antidepressants in 2025/2026, a rise of 3.1 per cent on the previous year. Women account for more than two-fifths of those prescribed the drugs, a figure that climbs to 71 per cent among those aged 15 to 19.

Among those to take part is Sarah Bartlett, a teacher who also cares for her 89-year-old mother, who has multiple sclerosis and is recovering from cancer. Bartlett described feeling “overwhelmed, lonely and at the end of my tether” before approaching her GP.

“I wasn’t really aware of a lot to help people who were in my position in the area, and I went to my doctor in desperation and said: ‘I can’t cope, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how I’m going to keep looking after my mum,’” she said.

A Liverpool fan, Bartlett was offered nature, art or talking therapy before opting to attend Forest Green matches with her son. “It was just enough of a lift to really make a difference,” she said. “It was nice to be able to spend some time together with my son, to see different faces and chat to different people — a change of scenery. It breaks the routine.”

Vince and Opher are now pressing football’s governing bodies to scale the model beyond the fifth tier, arguing that the sport’s reach and community infrastructure make it a natural vehicle for social prescribing at a national level.