Somewhere over the Rainbow?

 

Imagine this.

You're in love.

There can't be many of us don't know what that's like, whether we think it's wonderful, terrible, or an irritating waste of time. When you've got it, it's hard to ignore.

All you want to do is touch him, be with him, text him every hour of the day to tell him that you're thinking about him.

You dream about being with him, maybe getting a place together...

Well, forget about it.

Because you're a professional footballer and if you did that, you might as well walk out of your job right now.

So instead you go home to somebody else.

Maybe someone who doesn't know that your interests lie elsewhere.

Or somebody in the same unfortunate position as yourself, a lesbian who doesn't want to come out. You provide protection and excuses for each other.

Or possibly you share your life with somebody who doesn't care what you do as long as they can keep on living the lifestyle your cash provides.

This is how gay men have lived for a long long time. Some gay men now have more choices. Footballers don't.

What does it do to someone when they hear their own personal reality, their innermost nature, being yelled as an insult by the fans in the stands?

What do you feel when you know that a lot of the people who shout to encourage you while you're playing, would laugh or mock or worse if they knew what desires you keep hidden in your locked box of a heart?

Sneaking around, meeting someone in secret is bad for a person. Live like that and eventually you start to believe that what you're doing is wrong, even though you know that it isn't.

Being alone isn't good for a person either. Trying to deny what you want, what you need from somebody else is self-destructive.

None of us can change what we are. We can change how we think, how we behave, what we believe in; we can't change our own nature.

Gay footballers are faced with the choice of denying themselves, denying what they are or giving up playing football.

Well, they should just give it up then, you might say.

Why? Why should they?

Football is something that some people are lucky enough to be good at. They have the necessary physique, talents, reactions, instincts,to make them excellent footballers.

Some of those people are also gay.

You can't change that you're good at football. If you're good at something - anything - that thing cries out to be used. A bird flies. A horse runs. Dancers dance and damn the arthritis that may follow. A footballers plays football, even if he has to deny himself to do it. The world well lost when you're doing what you love, what you're meant to do, one of the things that means you are you.

But if that means you have to abandon something else that defines you as a person - what an unpleasant state to live your life in.

Nobody who hasn't experienced it can understand the stress and the pain involved in living your life in a state of pretence.

In 2010, Bayern München striker, Mario Gómez (now with Fiorentina) said that a gay player who came out would play as though they had been liberated.

In 2011, Bayern München and Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer (then with Schalke 04) suggested that gay players should come out as it would relieve a burden.

Nothing much has changed since then.

Perhaps the Rainbow Laces campaign will make a difference and help drag football out of the dark ages. It's certainly something to hope for.

NOTE

You may also enjoy reading the first two parts of my story, In The Family, which you'll find here on the blog. It's actually one I'm writing for Queer Romance Month but it seemed relevant to Rainbow Laces weekend so I've published the first two bits early.
It's an urban fantasy with football so something for everybody :D