Charlton Women’s goalkeeper won’t be wearing the traditional No1 jersey when they take on Aston Villa at The Valley on Saturday.

Katie Startup will be wearing the number 40, and all for good reason.

One person commits suicide every 40 seconds across the world, an eye-opening 135 people every 90 minute football match.

"I wanted to something different with my number this season,” Startup said.

“I wanted to try and give it a bit of a meaning and naturally the first thing I went to was 'can I use it to raise awareness on mental health?'

MIND and World Health Organisation (WHO) are two websites that drew Startup to the eye-opening fact, a fact that struck a chord with the 20-year-old.

"Hopefully when people ask why I changed from number 1 to number 40, that will start the conversation about mental health that will make it a bit more of a comfortable subject for people to talk about."

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Startup was awarded with the PFA Community Champion Award last season for her work in the community.

The former England Lionesses U19 keeper attended a number of Charlton Athletic Community Trust (CACT) programmes and will be doing so again on World Mental Health Day this Thursday 10th October, when she will visit a CACT mental health programme.

"I think it's really important that we look after each other and we start to look after our mental health like we do our physical health. 

"I've said before, if you've got the flu you wouldn't just ignore it, you wouldn't tell someone to get on with it you would tell them to seek help and until we take a similar standing with our mental health and start treating it seriously I think then there's still work to be done."

Eighth placed Charlton Women take on second place Aston Villa at The Valley on Saturday at 3pm, tickets are on sale here.