It will take more than a footballer in Attitude to get gay players to come out

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/04/footballer-attitude-gay-players-out-closet

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What will it take to lure gay footballers out of the closet? A flutter of excitement erupted yesterday when Matt Jarvis, the heterosexual West Ham United winger, graced the cover of gay magazine Attitude, bare-chested, clutching a ball, and urging players to come out.

"It's not something that's going to be a shock," he said, rather optimistically. "There'd be support everywhere within the football community, whether it be players, fans or within the PFA [Professional Footballers' Association]."

To a limited extent, I don't doubt this. But I also don't doubt that an out-and-proud player's ears would ring with abuse from rival teams' supporters. Jarvis's stance is admirable, welcome, a helpful contribution. But for anyone to believe such a well-meaning interview will provoke any material cultural change is naive.

Currently, Jarvis is a liberal anomaly, dribbling away with almost no one to pass to. Closeted players would need the majority of their colleagues to wave the rainbow flag to convince them that the changing rooms would be safe – an anti-homophobia re-enactment of yesterday's walk-off by the whole of AC Milan and Pro Patria after racist chants. Instead, on the same day, we had a poll suggesting a quarter of footballers believe an out player would be treated as an outcast. But even steadfast solidarity would not be enough: the battle for openness of orientation is much wider, much more profound.

Far from being the beautiful game, football is scarred and pot-marked, a Hogarthian grotesque, defaced by violence and hate. But so is wider society. Our national game is the barometer of our base national mood. No schoolkid will echo the nonsense uttered by some London media folk that claim it's easy, nay fashionable, to be gay now. Gay teens know it's not. They know that on the ground we're shifting by increments not leaps.

And it is here in our formative years that our inner world is created, the one that, if robust enough, will burst out and demand to be heard however hostile the environment. Want footballers to come out? Fight homophobia everywhere – the vitriol spouted by our hate-mongering church leaders, the venom spewed by reactionary politicians, the nonsense billowing out of bigoted columnists. Blaming and focusing so intently on the game alone will never work. It is merely a meeting point, a coffee morning for homophobes.

In 2010, when Anton Hysen became the second professional footballer in history to come out I was the first British journalist to reach him (paywalled link). Having interviewed several public figures about coming out I was expecting an emotional, shaky exchange. But to my delight I found a young man so plucky, so unfazed he all but carried a scarf aloft with the word "WHATEVER".

"It's not a big deal. If you want to do a homo joke I don't care," he said with a shrug. This wasn't bravado. What made Hysen so devil-may-care? The clues can be found in his upbringing. Raised by the famously irreverent former Liverpool defender Glenn Hysen, his dad, who's been on gay pride marches, encouraged him to come out. With family onside from the outset of one's orientation, being open isn't just a probability but a necessity – the armour that makes a closet redundant.

Many have said that it would take one or two players to come out for many more to follow. It would not. Hysen might have prompted USA's David Testo's copycat announcement in 2011. But their low ranking cannot explain the lack of elite footballers coming out. Even a major premiership player wouldn't be enough. As Gareth Thomas, the first out rugby player, explained to me recently, the aftermath is what's crucial:

<blockquote>"Coming out is great for you as a person… but you also take the responsibility that comes with it and make sure the stories that follow are positive." </blockquote>

A domino effect will only come when the careers and mental states of any such premiership trailblazers hold fast. Triumphant tales, long past coming out, are vital to offset the warning shadow cast by the suicide of football's first out son, Justin Fashanu.

But to achieve these glorious ends, we must focus on everyone's beginnings: attitudes at school and in the family. To win in the changing rooms and on the pitches and terraces is, in the end, not an away match but a home game.