When Luke Barrow went out during the worst months of his life, he'd arrive at the pub early. Before his mates got there. Before anyone could ask how he was doing.
He'd order two pints and drink them alone.
"It gave me confidence. It was a short-term solution to the way I was feeling," he told Jordan Elgott and Rohan Anand on the latest episode of The Grassroots Hotline, recorded at Wembley Stadium during Mental Health Awareness Week. "Obviously not healthy. But it'd take me two pints to even let anyone in whatsoever."
That habit gave a name to something that now reaches thousands of men across the UK. Two Pints Deep is a men's mental health charity founded by Luke, built on a simple idea: meet men where they already are, in language they actually relate to, and help them start conversations they've never been taught how to have.
This week, Centre Circle and Two Pints Deep announced a formal partnership. But the story behind it starts years earlier, on a phone call from Luke's dad.
"I didn't deal with it"
Football has been the social centre of Luke's life for as long as he can remember. He played Saturday and Sunday leagues as a kid, played at university, and after graduating went to Australia to play semi-professionally.
While he was out there, his mum was battling cancer back home. It had spread. At the end of July 2019, his dad called and told him the latest scans weren't good. He needed to come home immediately.
Luke dropped everything. Left his team, left his job, left clothes in the house. Got on the next flight. His mum died within a week of him landing.
"I'd never experienced anything like it. Loss, grief, any adverse situation that would have affected my mental health. And I didn't deal with it."
He decided his job was to be the strong one. Support his dad and sister, who had been there with his mum while he was overseas. Do the speech at the funeral. Carry the weight so nobody else had to.
"But I didn't know how to let go of that weight. I wasn't used to talking about my feelings. I wasn't used to having those conversations with friends. I'd been away for a few years. What was the dynamic going to be like? I can't just come back and put all this on them."
So he kept it in. For six to nine months. Alcohol misuse. Gambling addiction. Anything to take himself away from the reality of what was happening, while wearing a smile on the outside.
"I used to suffer from really bad social anxiety during that time because I didn't want people asking me how I was."
"We talk all the time. But we weren't talking about the things that matter most."
After nine months, Luke had what he describes as a breakdown. He opened up to some of his closest friends. And discovered they had been suffering too.
"I was like, wait a second. If I told you this, would you not have told me? Was this just existing underneath everything we were doing? We talk all the time. WhatsApp group chat going off all the time. Banter each other. But we weren't talking about the things that matter most."
That realisation became the foundation of Two Pints Deep. It started as an Instagram page sharing positive messages and trying to break stigma through a different voice. Within a week, it had 5,000 followers.
"Men messaging from everywhere being like, I needed this. Just a place to understand my feelings. To be educated on them a little bit. To go to non-clinical spaces and feel supported. To then build the confidence to go to clinical places if needs be. But a place to not be lonely in these thoughts."
It took almost two years between that breakdown and launching the page. Luke was still on his own journey. He tried counselling, tried therapy for the first time, and slowly developed the concept with his cousin, a graphic designer who helped with branding. Even then, he was nervous to post, because posting about Two Pints Deep meant posting about everything that had happened to him.
"Not everyone had heard that story. It took me time to build up the confidence."
"Bridging the gap"
Two Pints Deep became a registered charity last year. Luke left his recruitment career in 2024 to go full time. His dad, who initially questioned the decision, now sits on the board of trustees.
The charity's approach is deliberately different from traditional mental health organisations. Luke describes it as a signposting charity rather than a service provider. The goal is to fill the gap between suffering in silence and walking into a therapist's office, a gap Luke knows from experience is where most men get stuck.
"I didn't have the confidence to walk into a men's circle. Therapy was too expensive. There was still so much stigma around the next step of help that I wasn't ready for. Two Pints Deep exists to fill that gap."
In practice, that means free-to-attend events around the UK that are, as Luke puts it, "90% relatable with 10% intrigue, education, support and resource." Music gigs. Sports screenings. Exercise events. Environments men have been to before, with something extra woven in.
It also means meeting men in the physical spaces they already occupy. Beer mats in pubs. Stickers on the back of toilet doors. Spill mats on bars. Resources designed to fit into the environment without feeling clinical or out of place.
"Our resource design mantra is always 'designed to be ignored.' It's nice that it's there and people aren't just shutting off to it. They're like, oh, that's good to know. Maybe I'll use that another time. And that's okay for us."
The impact is already tangible. Luke has received messages from men saying Two Pints Deep helped them open up to their partners or families. Parents have written in after finding a beer mat in their son's bedroom, brought home from a pub, and felt reassured that something had stuck.
Why grassroots football
This week, Centre Circle and Two Pints Deep announced a partnership, timed to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.
The logic is straightforward. Grassroots football is one of the biggest gathering points for men in the country. It's where they volunteer, where they watch their kids play, where they blow off steam on a Saturday or Sunday. It's a place full of emotion, effort, and community. And it's a place where honest conversations about mental health are still rare.
"Grassroots football is a place where a lot of men come and gather and show emotion and put effort in," Luke said. "It's a perfect space in terms of where we can show more avenues to support."
The partnership will see the two organisations working together through the summer and beyond, with activations planned around the World Cup.
"Our job is not to replace the changing room," Luke said. "Lads are going to be lads. Embrace the changing room culture. Our job is to support, educate, and resource men to know where they can go if they need to talk about it. And also support the men who might be on the receiving end of those conversations. Because a lot of us have never been taught how to deal with a mate who's really struggling."
"Hoping for extinction"
Asked where he'd like Two Pints Deep to be in ten or twenty years, Luke's answer was disarming.
"As a charity founder, if you're not hoping for the extinction of your charity, you're not aligned with your mission."
He knows that's a long way off. But the ambition is less about building an institution and more about sparking a cultural shift. He compared it to how Kit-Kat didn't invent taking a break. They just sponsored the moment.
"If we can get lads around the UK, when they sit down for the second pint, thinking, well, I should ask that question now. Or joking around saying, oh, two pints deep, maybe we should start having a conversation. Then we've done our job."
Luke's mum is never far from the centre of it.
"This all stems from the passion I have from my mum's mission and her legacy. This is who I am now. I never thought it would be. But this is who I am."
Listen to Luke's full conversation with Jordan Elgott and Rohan Anand on The Grassroots Hotline.
To find out more about Two Pints Deep, visit twopintsdeep.com or follow @TwoPintsDeep on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
