One thing we do know about football fans is that in most cases you could be black & gay but if you were banging the goals in every week these 'idiot' fans would quite happily be singing your name every week on the terraces!
I imagine if you are a gay footballer most of your teammates already would be aware. It is the coming out to the wider public and the potential reaction from the terraces that I think is the stumbling block, nothing to do with the foreign contingent in the dressing room.
I just think its the stigma that nobody wants to be the first or only one out.
A few players in non league or once they've retired have come out but I don't think anyone since Fashanu has been openly gay and active at the height of their careers. The first gay american football players career didn't exactly go well for him and teams keep getting into trouble for illegally asking draft prospects if they "like men" so our football isn't the only one with a problem.
I genuinely think once a few players come out, the proverbial floodgates would open and after some initial headlines it would get forgotten and everyone would move on.
It’s difficult for any of us to comprehend (unless anyone on here is gay of course) how difficult being openly gay is. I get the impression that in general society it has become easier for most gay men and women to be open about it.
Being openly gay in football will have a number of areas of concern for a player, how will my team mates react? How will the club react? The supporters? Opposition players and fans? Marketing and sponsorship deals?
Let’s face it, Football, Is massive. The implications of one mans ***uality could be massive. They shouldn’t be. But they could.
It would be big news. The Sun would have pages dedicated to it? Why? Why should anyone’s ***uality be news? It’s private, for me, how any man or woman wants to live there life, it should be as private as they want to be. Footballers included.
Totally agree but there seems to be a section of society, that thinks the public have a right to know, rubbish of course. I don't see why anyone should be duty or honour bound, to declare their ***uality, simply to satisfy a small number of politically active gays.
The FA are complicit, they seem to be driving the move to have openly gay players just to prove how inclusive they are, leave them to their privacy, it really doesn't matter to most people.
If the floodgates were to open we could end up with the Rooney Rule being extended to insist on clubs interviewing at least one Gay candidate for the managers job. It shouldn't be an issue any more than whether a player is married or not, or has children etc. The problem is, if you have a high profile Premier League player, his private life will inevitably become known. If he wants to keep his ***uality to himself he's left with no choice but to live a lie.
I used to bump into him most Saturdays at a Pub in St James Street, forgot the name now. He used to park his Pink Cadillac outside on double yellows and no one ever seemed to give him a ticket.
He always had time for a chat about the afternoons match and seemed a genuinely nice bloke.
I can remember standing on the old Kop terrace for the Notts v Forest match on 4th December 1982, still my favourite ever match after all these years - can't think why!
In the build up to the derby game there had been a strong rumour that Fash was going to cross the Trent to sign for us after he'd been frozen out at Forest by Brian Clough. Not all Notts fans welcomed this rumour. Throughout the game Forest fans on one half of the Kop were singing "we've got rid of you, Fashanu, Fashanu" while the Notts fans on the other side of the fence sang back "we don't want you, Fashanu, Fashanu". Poor old Fash who was sat in the old Main Stand during the game (wearing a huge brown sheepskin coat if I remember rightly) must have felt really unwanted - and this was some time before he announced he was gay.
It was only after he signed for Notts and bagged a few goals did the fans really take to him and the words of the song changed to "we'll take more care of you, Fashanu, Fashanu".
I don't remember Fash being prolific but I think he scored a couple of crackers including one at Anfield to draw us level in an eventual 5-1 defeat to Liverpool on New Years Day 1983 (my first away trip on a 'Football Special' train)