In the featured image, Daniel (right) is a proud Newcastle United supporter
Ask your average person on the street what they think of when someone says Newcastle fan, and they’ll probably say a big bloke in the Gallowgate end with his top off when it’s -3 outside. Shouting at Joelinton. That’s almost a meme, but you get the idea. Newcastle fans are proper men. So, they can’t possibly be gay, right? After all, homosexuality is often seen as at odds with masculinity. It may be 2020, but nowhere is this masculinity more prevalent than on the football pitch.
“Wow, you’re so much better than I expected” a mate told me the first time we played football together. When I asked him the reason why, he started to falter and trip over his words. He was trying to avoid saying “Because you’re gay”, but we both knew that was why. He was surprised I could score goals and make a pass to someone on my team. It was one of a few occasions, when I was younger, that my private life intersected with playing football. I’ve never kept my sexuality a secret from the men that I’ve played with, but I haven’t exactly been forthcoming about it either.
My teammate was (and still is) a liberal, socially conscious male. So, imagine what it must be like going into dressing room, or stepping out onto a football pitch with a group of strangers. How are they going to react to your sexuality? Surprise isn’t the ideal reaction, but it’s not the end of the world. But what if it’s met with aggression? Anger? Disappointment? How do you cope with those?
In 2020, there still isn’t an openly gay footballer in the Premier League and this is partly because of intense media pressure.
It’s understandable that a gay footballer wouldn’t want such an enormous weight on their shoulders. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t gay men playing week in week out around the country in Sunday Leagues. There might even be one on your 5-a-side team! According to Sport England’s 2016 survey, “Sport, Physical Activity & LGBT”, 70% of gay males under 22 were not out about their sexuality to some or all of their teammates. This drops to 43% for those who are over 22, a positive sign, but that’s still almost half.
Happily, positive sounds have come from inside football. Though we, the general public, don’t know of any gay players, James Milner says in his book, Ask a Footballer, that he doesn’t think there would be the slightest issue in the dressing room if a player came out. The Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport, edited by Rory McGrath, Jamie Cleland, and Eric Anderson, suggests that football may be where the change has been most profound in the past 30 years. That though, is behind closed doors.
And while player’s attitudes may have changed, the same cannot be said of all fans.
In a YouGov poll last year, a third of the 1,010 heterosexual fans surveyed said that they did not believe homophobia was a problem in football, yet the same amount would be uncomfortable with two men kissing in the stadium.
No scientific study has proved that there’s a correlation between sexuality and sporting ability. It’s a societal problem. And as long as LGBT people don’t feel welcome in football, this prejudice will exist inside our community too. I’ve been asked “Are you really gay?” and told that I’m a ‘rubbish gay’ by both friends and dates. Whether said jokingly or not, ‘masculine’ football doesn’t conform to the ‘feminine’ LGBT stereotype, period.
It may at this point sound like I don’t have a sense of humour. Or that I’m easily offended. Not really, the bigger issue is that so many people don’t see a problem with making lazy assumptions about sexuality.
Statistics only say so much though. I’ve played football with several different groups and have met only one other gay guy. And I only know that because we matched on Tinder. “Don’t mention this at footy, mate,” he suggested.
Sport in the UK is generally progressive – just look at how many gay role models there are. Rugby has Gareth Thomas, diving Tom Daley, and five of England’s lionesses identify as LGBT. So why is men’s football so impenetrable? Well, what do you hear when a tricky winger ends up on the floor? Get up you puff. What a girl. It may seem like banter, but when hearing this constantly, is it any surprise that we don’t feel comfortable disclosing sexuality on the football pitch?
The knock-on effect of this is that young people in the LGBT community are more prone to not only poorer mental health than their heterosexual counterparts, but physical health too. If gay men felt more comfortable playing football, it would go some way to improving both mental and physical health.
Thankfully, things are changing. We may not have an elite level gay professional footballer in the UK men’s game yet, but there are role models that show being gay and involved in sport don’t have to be two separate spheres.
Ryan Atkin is an openly gay official who is working his way up the football leagues. LGBT fan groups are becoming more visible at football games across the country, with 42 EFL clubs having an official alliance. Reports of homophobic language in football stadiums are being taken more seriously – last year a Tranmere fan was arrested for homophobic abuse of Wycombe Wanderers’ ‘keeper Ryan Allsop and in January of this year, three fans were removed from Brighton’s Amex Stadium for homophobic abuse.
All of these changes are positive and will hopefully move us closer to football being more inclusive on all levels. But we’re not there yet.
