Thanks Mate, Pass the Ball – Andy’s Man Club

Last night one of our facilitators shared that his long-time ill dad had passed away.

This morning the group chat felt heavy. No one wanted to be the first to move it on.

I said:

Nobody wants to be the first to move the conversation on from what was shared. And I suppose that’s similar to an AMC night. Someone offloads something powerful and emotional and then the ball gets passed. “Thank you for sharing mate, pass the ball.“

And that’s where this sits.

Because that phrase, “pass the ball”, can be brutal.

The power of offloading

Andy’s Man Club works because men can offload.

• No fixing.
• No advice.
• No judgement.
• Just space.

For many blokes, that alone is significant. Some have never said certain words out loud before. Not to their partner. Not to their mates. Not to anyone.

Sometimes being heard is enough.

Sometimes.

One of the lads in the group said exactly that:

Sometimes offloading can be enough and if heard and listened to can just be enough.

And he’s right.

Being witnessed without interruption is powerful. It says,

“You matter enough for us to sit still while you speak.”

For a lot of men, that’s the first time they’ve ever experienced that.

But sometimes it isn’t enough

Here’s the uncomfortable bit.

Sometimes it isn’t enough.

Sometimes a bloke has just dug up something he’s buried for years. Sometimes decades. Something heavy. Something shame-soaked. Something he has rehearsed in his head a thousand times and always backed out of saying. Almost backed out of saying this time, too.

And then he hears:

“Thanks mate. Pass the ball.”

No malice. No indifference. Just the AMC structure.

But it can land like a door quietly closing.

Not because the group doesn’t care. They absolutely do. Not because the format is wrong. It protects everyone. But because emotionally, it can feel like:

“I just split myself open, and now we move on?”

That tension is real.

For some, though, just saying words they’ve never said can make this easier to talk about fully one day.

The hardest part of holding space

Sitting with that moment is one of the hardest parts of facilitating.

You can’t rescue. You can’t dive in. You can’t turn it into therapy. You can’t derail the format.

But you also can’t rush it.

There’s a subtle art to letting it breathe.

Let it matter. Make sure it matters. Even within the structure.

Because grief, trauma, shame and long-buried wounds don’t tidy themselves up neatly in a few minutes.

And neurodivergent men, especially, can feel that shift intensely. When something meaningful is followed immediately by movement, it can register as dismissal, even when it isn’t.

That’s not weakness. That’s nervous system reality.

The once-a-week problem

There’s another layer.

AMC is once a week.

For some, that’s a lifeline.

For others, it can feel like surfacing something raw on Monday night and then being alone with it until next week.

That doesn’t mean AMC is failing. It means human beings are complex.

Offloading is powerful. Being heard is powerful. But ongoing support matters too.

We have to be honest about both truths at the same time.

So what do we do with this?

We don’t throw the format out. It works.

We don’t turn it into therapy. It isn’t. As one of our facilitators said today

We’re not councillors or therapists. We’re a support group of like minded individuals giving that person a safe space to say what they want to say. We don’t judge, we accept, we acknowledge, we offer that safe space.

I agree it’s hard when someone’s shared deep and dark thoughts, that we just move on, but it may have given someone else in the circle the encouragement to speak out and know they are not alone.

We remember that behind every “pass the ball” there may be a nervous system still vibrating, a bloke wondering if he said too much, a mind already replaying the moment.

And sometimes the most powerful thing isn’t breaking the structure, it’s softening the energy around it.

Eye contact. A pause. A steady tone. A chat in the break or afterwards if the member wants it.

Support isn’t just the system. It’s the humanity inside the system.

And maybe that’s the real work.

Not perfect responses. Not dramatic gestures. Just making sure that when someone proper unearths a long-buried wound, they feel it mattered.

Because it did.

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