Back of the net: CALM and Golaso release ten original football-related patches

Like football? In the market for some bespoke patches to sew into that tatty 02/03 season Norwich City training top you wear down to five-a-side after work on Tuesdays? Want to do your bit for a charity focused on preventing male suicide in the UK? Read on.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) has hooked up with GolasoTM — a community-driven store and studio that is inspired by football culture — to produce a ten-strong series of patches put together by illustrators who likely spend their evenings watching “SUPERB GOAL AMAZING SKILL” videos on YouTube.

Finding the creatives who were eventually inducted into the project was a matter of Golaso focussing its attention on talent who’d previously produced impressive work in or around the world of football.

The amassed crew of soccer-loving creatives worked in art, editorial, fashion, and product design. They also fit into Golaso’s wider modus operandi, which Golaso founder Keith Foggan describes as wanting to “collaborate with creators that are doing something that demonstrates a fresh personal style or slightly unique take on what’s on-trend aesthetically.”

In the end, Golaso plumped for back-of-the-net contributions from Geoff Gouveia, Stanley Chow, Callum Stephenson, Dan Evans, Mikey Hughes, Mark Johnson, Ilovedust, Josh Parkin, Patterns of Play and Clément Striano.

“We’d talked about doing something to help support CALM during the World Cup, as mental health is increasingly becoming a more open conversation in football – and that gives those of us engaged in the culture a chance to do something to help,” Keith answers when It’s Nice That ask why he felt hooking up with CALM made sense for the team at GolasoTM. “Each of us has been touched by mental health issues – either through a friend, family or personally – so the issue also has particular importance for us. It’s a conversation we are more than happy helping bring attention to in whatever way we can,” he adds.

CALM’s CEO Stuart Gunning says, “We’re hugely grateful to GolasoTM for their support of CALM. Suicide remains the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK, but the dedication of our supporters allow us to continue providing a space for men who may be going through a difficult time to seek help and communicate.”

For Keith, football can, and often does, play a positive role in the lives of young men around the world. “Football has massive influence over the conversations men, and women, have. It’s a platform that gives us a huge opportunity to get the right topics in front of mind for everyone involved in the game as a participant or supporter.”

He admits that British football has had its problems in the past, and still isn’t free of discrimination and negativity, but feels that it is for those reasons that “we push the right agenda and put subjects like mental health at the top of it.”

The patches are available to purchase now.