It’s no secret that football in the UK still has a problem with racism. We hear stories almost every day of players receiving vile messages on social media.
We hear less about homophobic comments – maybe because there is no out gay footballer at the elite level in the men’s game -- but that doesn’t mean homophobia isn’t there. LGBTQ supporters will tell you that.
In the 1970s opposition fans at a Nottingham Forest game sang about manager Brian Clough having an affair with his assistant Peter Taylor.
Fast-forward to 1990 and little had changed. Supporters at a game at Loftus Road, the home of Queens Park Rangers, sang of a well-known player: “He’s gay, his bent, his arse is up for rent.” Equally sadly, the star, who went on to win Premier League medals and play for his country, responded – in what he presumably thought was good humour – by camply waving a limp wrist at the supporters.
As recently as 2016, a report commissioned by Stonewall found that 72 per cent of fans had heard homophobic abuse while watching sport during the previous five years. For a while, lots of ignorant people thought gay men in particular didn’t like football, or many other sports. That in itself is homophobic.
And former USA national team coach Jill Ellis, who masterminded back-to-back World Cup victories in 2015 and 2019, has spoken of the time before she was out, saying: “You’re trying to recruit players… and other coaches could use your sexuality against you, so I was very much a private person.”
But it’s true that things have improved – and so they should, given that an estimated 2,000 supporters at an average Premier League game are queer - and lots of teams have LGBTQ fan groups, including West Ham’s Pride of Irons (we’ll leave you to decide whether the publisher of a well-known magazine is a member, but we know he supports the Hammers).
The groups have established contacts at their clubs to improve their match-day experience with a focus on the training of stewards, incident reporting and promoting the visibility of queer fans at grounds as well at Pride events.
A few months before the Covid pandemic hit the world, Call It Out – a Europe-wide convention addressing LGBTQ phobia in the game – was held at West Ham’s London Stadium.
Call It Out is an annual event co-ordinated by Pride in Football, the UK affiliation for LGBT football fan groups, and the 2019 event was held in partnership with Football Supporters Europe’s Project Out – an EU-funded initiative to fight homophobia and empower LGTBQ stakeholders.
A welcome drinks event was sponsored by the Attitude Magazine Foundation, which stepped in to help Pride in Football co-ordinate the event. Speakers included the foundation’s Darren Styles OBE and the magazine’s sports editor Mark McAdam – rumour has it that he also works for Sky Sports.
The event went on to feature networking sessions, and workshops conducted by LGBTQ fans – all with the aim of helping to make the “beautiful game” a more inclusive place. Project Out, meanwhile, was giving recommendations on the publication of handbooks for clubs and governing bodies.
Between 2014 and 2017, the number of LGBTQ fans groups affiliated with Pride in Football increased from four to close to 30. There are Gay Gooners (Arsenal), Proud Canaries (Norwich City), Canal Street Blues (Manchester City) and Proud Lilywhites (Spurs) to name just a few.
We may still be a long way from seeing a Premier League footballer come out and we are unlikely to ever hear any elite male footballer talking about being a relationship with another player but at least, thanks to groups such as Pride in Football, we are going a long way to wiping out the abuse at grounds that can drive LBGTQ fans away from the game.