Being gay and being a professional top flight sportsman, can the two coexist happily or is it a marriage made is disaster?
Gareth Thomas, the former Welsh rugby star and only out gay professional rugby player believes being gay in sport needed make a difference. The muscularly sportsman has become a bit of a gay icon in the UK since coming out publicly. He's getting onwith life at his new club, the rather aptly named Crusaders, swimmingly, despite his homosexuality not being mentioned for the first few days.
In an interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper, the strapping star talks of his hurt and upset at the homophobic abuse that some fans hurled at him during a match at Castlleford. "When I was on the field at Castleford I could hear some chants from a small section of the crowd. It wasn’t very nice and I was pretty hurt by what I could hear. I’m only human and I can’t deny I was hurt.
But the sportsman believes he's paved the way and made it easier for other gay rugby players in the future, and in a way, he sees him being abused as a positive thing. "I have to break it up into pieces to understand. I hate the word 'pioneer' but there's no escaping the fact I'm the first. So for me to get abuse is, in a weird way, a good thing" He told the paper. "Afterwards the Rugby League Commission fined Castleford. We went to Bradford the week after and I was told the stewards had been briefed that if there was any abuse aimed at me then they had to eject those fans because they didn't want to be fined. The next [gay] person that follows me will be glad I've opened the door because they're not going to get the same abuse."
The full interview is on The Guardian website.
Jason Shaw
GayAgenda.com's UK Correspondent
Jason's no sportsman, but he is a man, a man living on the edge, currently having cheesecake withdrawal symptoms, find out more at The Seafront Diaries!
© 2010 Copyright Jason Shaw
No comments:
Post a Comment