I think some people are expecting floodgates to be opened and hundreds of players coming out. One article I read claimed that there could possibly be as many as 200 gay players. I doubt it on two counts: the first being that I don't think in general gay men are attracted to typically, shall we say, very male sports like football, rugby or boxing in the same way that gay women are attracted to those same sports and second, not a single ex-player (that I'm aware of) has come out since retiring. Why would that be if as some people think there are lots of players hiding it in order to live a peaceful life? Surely after they've retired the heat is completely off.
I would say asking all to do it or actually demanding is wrong but it's more about those who want to being able to and not "living the lie" as its only harming them. We have to remember a 17 year old came out. 17. Saying retire first is saying hide yourself til you are 35 as a footballer. 15-20 years of hiding yourself for what? The thing is how many kids were put off playing at all bu this and that's sad. As far as I am aware there more rugby players than footballers.
I don't think anyone should feel they have to live a lie. Personally I don't care about a player's sexuality, it isn't my business. I just don't think there would be a rush of players coming out because I sort of link it to the fact that no ex-players have come out when it would be perfectly 'safe' to do so. It doesn't mean there aren't any of course.
I think younger people today are a lot more tolerant and it’s much more of a norm now though so players coming through in lays 5 years, prob more likely than those that retired 10-15 years ago when was still a bit of a taboo thing
As long as they don't have sex on the football field (during a match) their sexual preferences matter not at all to me.
Yeah, my kids all have close friends who are LGBT or Q it's no more significant than hair colour or shoe size to them. Certain LGBTQ folk are a lot more open about it these days. I only knew a couple of out people when I was in my teens.
Lifted from tinterweb,thought it was excellent explanation. There are lots of Scousers who don’t feel English and don’t identify with Englishness. (“We’re not English, we are Scouse!”) Why is this? This is a fascinating question of social identity and one that often puzzles Liverpool fans who aren’t from Liverpool. I’m a Scouser and I thought I’d write a post about this to try and explain why I think this is the case. Full disclaimer: I have no idea if my explanation is correct. It’s just my opinion. I hope other Scousers on this sub will add their thoughts on this strange Liverpool-centric issue too. (I’m not saying you have to be a Scouser to contribute to this discussion of course. All comments are welcome!) So why do so many Scousers not feel English or identify with Englishness? There are lots of reasons for this, but in my opinion the two most influential causes are: Massive Irish immigration to the city of Liverpool diluted the Englishness of the city and changed the culture & social fabric of Liverpool. Social and economic hardship in the second half of the 20th century led to isolation and a micro-culture developed in Liverpool that gave the city a fiercely strong sense of local identity. Let’s start with the Irish Invasion! Liverpool was FLOODED with Irish immigrants in the 18th and 19th centuries following terrible famines in Ireland. They changed the demographics of the city forever (and of course, gave us our distinctive accent). By 1851 (the end of the Great Famine in Ireland) 25% of the population of Liverpool were Irish-born. These people obviously had kids/grandchildren and Irish ancestry and culture permeated the city. To this day it is part of the fabric of Liverpool. Irish ancestry is everywhere. Why is this relevant? Well as I’m sure most of you will know, the Irish don’t like the English. (England invaded and ruled Ireland for a long time and, at times, treated the Irish terribly.) So that is, in my opinion, a major contributory factor to why the people of Liverpool do not feel patriotically English. (Compared to the likes of Oxford or Portsmouth or York for example.) The second major reason is the economic hardship Liverpool endured from the 1950s onwards, which led to the city becoming isolated and developing its own micro-culture. Liverpool’s economic apocalypse was caused by the collapse in maritime trade as the British Empire declined. The British Empire covered 25% of the world (it was the largest empire in history) and Liverpool was its leading port. Imagine the scale of goods & industry that passed through the city’s docks in those pre-flight days! Until World War 2 Liverpool remained a vital and thriving port. 90% of all Allied war materials passed through Liverpool (most of them coming from the USA and Canada). After WW2 Britain was hobbled by war debt and couldn’t remain a superpower. The British Empire collapsed and with it the economy of Liverpool. The city desperately needed help and investment from the British government to create jobs and help the city forge a new identity in new industries. But Liverpool was hung out to dry with an active policy of ‘managed decline’ by the government. (Still incredible to me, to this day.) This led to a strong anti-establishment resentment and a feeling of ‘Screw you London, we’ll climb the hill in our own way.’ We were on our own. During the 70’s and 80’s Liverpool was pretty bleak. Unemployment was high and crime levels rose because of that. There were riots. There were dilapidated buildings everywhere. Life was tough. During this period Liverpool became more isolated from the rest of the country. People didn’t want to come to Liverpool. It seems incredible to write this today in 2017, but people were genuinely scared to come to the city. Nobody wanted to invest in Liverpool or start a business there. Liverpool wasn’t a tourist destination. It was a place to be avoided. In this exile the city developed its own micro-culture based mainly around music and football. Speaking personally, when I was a boy the images you’d see on film/TV of ‘England’ were so far removed from the reality of my life that it was impossible not to feel ‘different’ from other English people. Liverpool didn’t look like the rest of England. Liverpudlians didn’t dress like the rest of England. Liverpudlians certainly did not speak like the rest of England. (Whenever I would leave Merseyside people would ALWAYS comment on my accent, because the Scouse accent is so distinctive.) It felt like we were entirely our own thing; almost like an island. A lot of this contributed, in my view, to the lies of Hillsborough taking root so easily. Scousers did not have a good image in the 80’s. I say this without hyperbole: We were viewed by many of our countrymen as an underclass. And then we had the establishment cover-up and lies of Hillsborough. It seemed like the whole country was against us. Against this backdrop, is it any wonder that we became disillusioned with ‘the establishment’, with London, with the English government? Instead of being our countrymen and allies, by the end of the 80’s they were our bonafide enemies (with Margaret Thatcher as the figurehead). So there you go. In my opinion the two main reasons Scousers don’t feel as English as other English people are: Massive Irish immigration to the city of Liverpool diluted the Englishness of the city and changed the culture & social fabric of Liverpool forever. The social & economic hardship the city faced in the second half of the 20th century led to isolation in which the city developed its own local culture and strong sense of identity that was entirely separate, and often directly at odds with, ‘Englishness’. As a side note on the 70’s and 80’s…. The city was in a tough spot, but we had the best ****ing football team in the world and we were grateful for that. We clung on to that. The football team was a source of joy during a time of depression and I think that’s one of the reasons why Liverpool fans grew so fanatical about the club. Nowadays, that fanaticism is seen as being a characteristic of being a Liverpool fan, but I hope this helps explain the origin of that BECOMING a characteristic. (At least as I see it.) The city was poor but we were great at football and that gave us a sense of enormous pride. .
Probably the neanderthals in Hull and Bolton and the East of Europe are not but 10-15 years ago it was quite normal and acceptable to make jokes and use gay as an insult etc etc.
I think you're right. I do think though that people are expecting something to happen in terms of a trickle through of players coming out when the reality could very possibly be that there simply aren't that many, if any, gay players. My personal experience has been that none of the effeminate boys (for want of a better word) I went to school with were interested in sport and bringing it more up to date, the same is true of the boys my lads went to school with. That's just my personal experience, it is in no way meant to be definitive. I don't actually know any rough, tough gay males. Those I do know are all more effeminate. Again, it obviously doesn't mean that all gay men are effeminate because that simply isn't true.
On your point about them not being into the sports… is that because they think that gay guys can’t play sport because they watch it and don’t see anyone? All they see is straight men and assume you have to be straight and it puts them off? I agree I don’t think suddenly gonna see an influx, but if you get a couple now, might get a couple more in a years time, then a couple more after that and then you’ve got guys that are 15/16 now seeing a few gay men playing and provide that extra motivation etc. Thing with these types of things are you need to start for it to progress. Once it does it’ll be slow but then you should hopefully eventually get more and more as time goes on Its a bit like stuff we do in terms of girls and STEM subjects at school. It’s hard to recruit women in those roles now, because only in last 4/5 years has it been pushed on girls at primary/secondary school so gonna take 10 years before you actually see any results.
Your first point and just from my personal experience, it's not necessarily about not wanting to take up football because of lack of role models, it's been about not even having any spectator interest. Out of interest, how many of your gay friends are into football?
Hmmmm. Let's see. Well I don't like asking people about their orientation. But ones deffo an Everton fan.
