Our Great Western FC is a mutual lifeline for its founder

Our social fabric is currently being held together by the people the state has forgotten. At Great Western FC, the support system is two-way. Whilst the players find safety from the streets, the club’s owner, Jon, found a reason to keep fighting in a country that is often designed to break him.

The Canary sponsors this club because it represents the purest form of mutual aid. We didn’t just put our name on a (very stylish) football shirt. We chose to back a community that absolutely refuses to let its members fall behind. For Jon, this pitch with a broken floodlight is where the struggle for personal survival meets the struggle for working class solidarity. And it’s fucking beautiful.

Great Western FC — defying disability and chronic pain

For Jon, Great Western FC is a shield against the crushing weight of disability and isolation. Jon lives with severe health problems and a constant, chronic pain he has battled for over 15 years. Before the pain took over, he worked full-time and earned over £40k a year plus bonuses. The transition to a life defined by physical limitation was a comedown that shattered his mental health.

In the UK, the link between long-term physical suffering and mental health crisis is a silent epidemic. Disabled people are nearly three times more likely to experience major depression than non-disabled people. A reality Jon knows intimately.

His pain is relentless as it seizes his chest, legs and arms. Scarcely a day passes when Jon doesn’t experience the physical symptoms of a heart attack. An awkward movement, a stray sneeze can leave him in agony for days. Every morning he has to force himself out of bed and to put one foot in front of the other.

The football family that keeps the rot away

Working as a print sales manager before his illness, Jon’s life was busy as fuck with him frequently working sixty hours. He was constantly busy, happy to do all the hours God sent because he felt productive and it kept his mind occupied. Yet the medical reality of his current situation is infinitely more knackering than that life ever was. Jon deals with high blood pressure, chronic fatigue syndrome and restless leg syndrome. He takes 16 tablets a day. Because he’s on immunosuppressants, a simple cold or flu can beat the shit out of him for weeks.

Jon spoke to me candidly from the sidelines of the pitch as we watched Great Western FC play.

I spent the worst part of a decade feeling sorry for myself. The chronic pain dictated my life because I didn’t have anything tangible to focus on. Self-isolation felt like the best way to cope but it only made me feel worse, like I was slowly rotting.

For him the pain is loudest when he has time to think about it. Keeping himself mentally busy is not just a lifestyle, it’s a clinical necessity for his survival. But by creating a family of over 75 footballers across three amateur teams, Jon has created enough noise to drown out the pain. The club has turned his years of solo struggle into a collective mission. He can’t be physically active – his body has robbed him of the ability to run onto the pitch – but the mental demand of managing a sprawling community has given him a reason to carry on.

I really hope we can keep this going for many seasons to come.

He isn’t just talking about a football team, he’s talking about his life.

A system designed to break the sick

Jon’s struggle is mirrored by millions of people in the UK who have been abandoned by a cruel welfare state. The statistics are a fucking national disgrace. In 2024 research found that nearly 50% of people (PAGE 31/32) living in poverty reside in a household with at least one disabled person.

Furthermore, the benefit gap is widening. Disabled people face additional costs of roughly £1,010 per month just to maintain the same living standards as a non-disabled person. When the state looks at someone like Jon, it sees a claimant to be managed. Not a human being with a contribution to make to society.

The DWP has created a culture of fear and poverty. Studies show that 75% of people (PAGE 12) living with a disability find the benefit application process so fucking stressful it makes their physical health worse. For someone living with chronic pain, losing their livelihood and then struggling to navigate a new world where they’re often regarded as criminals by the system, is often too much to deal with.

Great Western FC — the two-way street of survival

The beauty of Great Western FC is that it completely shits all over the government’s ‘charity’ narrative. In a charity there is a provider and a recipient. In mutual aid, everyone is a participant.

Not only has Jon helped 75 working class lads stay off the streets and our prisons, as we covered in our last article. It has also helped him to stay mentally busy enough to ignore the sensation of a heart attack. It’s helped them all to find purpose in a town the Westminster cabal couldn’t even point out on a fucking map.

But the tragedy of this mutual salvation is that it’s under threat. Whilst Jon fights to keep 75 young lads away from crime and despair, the systems around it are making it harder for the club to survive. Between rising pitch fees and the ‘hidden’ costs of grassroots sports, the FA recently reported that 96% of grassroots clubs have seen their operating costs rise significantly in the last year.

Jon is doing the work the state refuses to fund, yet he is being squeezed by the very systems that should be supporting him. Every time a council raises pitch fees or the FA adds another layer of bullshit bureaucracy, they make it harder for Jon to simply stay alive.

Featured image via the author