'A changing room allows men to express feelings'

An ex-professional footballer has praised a team set up for fathers who have experienced the death of a baby.

Former Northampton Town forward Marc Richards will be part of a team taking on Sands United in a charity match on Saturday.

Sands United was first started in the town and has grown across the country with the support of the baby loss charity.

Richards said: "A changing room is the perfect setting [to] allow [men] to express their feelings in a way they wouldn't otherwise."

The 42-year-old, now a coach at Northampton Town, will line up alongside former Cobblers players Chris Dunn, Michael Harriman, and Craig Hinton, as well as BBC Radio Northampton presenter Jake Sharpe.

Richards said he was "really pleased" to have been asked to take part in the charity match.

"Football brings lots of people together, not just men anymore," he said.

He said Sands United allowed men to "get together and just vent, and have fun, and talk and do all the things then men don't really do very well".

He added: "We want men to talk. We want people to talk about the things that bother us."

The former striker, who also played for Port Vale, Chesterfield and Cambridge United, admitted he "really struggled" when he retired, and it took him two years to come to terms with not playing football professionally anymore.

He has previously spoken about "not knowing" what he would do following his retirement, until he moved in to coaching.

Tristan Heard from Sands United got involved in the team following the loss of his first child, Tyler, at 38 weeks.

He will be taking on the ex-professionals at the Fernie Fields ground in Northampton.

Mr Heard said the team was crucial in allowing men to talk about their experience of baby loss.

"I know a lot of the time the men are seen to be the strong ones but it's not necessarily the case. We have feeling and emotions," he said.

"Sometimes because we are not often seen as the ones who can be emotional we can bottle it all up, and that can be unhealthy."

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