Jake Daniels (no relation), a 17 year old from somewhere up north, has ‘come out’ as gay. Nothing newsworthy there then. Plenty of gay people around, even up north. I met one in Watford once. But Jake is a professional footballer. Ooooohhhhh. So that is different. Very, very different. Because there is the ‘real world’, where people at least have to act in a decent, caring, sympathetic, understanding, compassionate and tolerant manner. And then there’s ‘football’, where none of that is even acceptable. To compare Jake to Tom Daly is a nonsense, possibly a nonce-ense, because diving is an individual sport which, for the purposes of this discussion, is fundamentally different. And in fact any sport is fundamentally different to football when it comes to the mentality of the players and more importantly, the fans. Which is why no footballer has ‘come out’ since Justin Fashanu. Who did so in 1990 and had killed himself by 1997. And you don’t kill yourself because of an excessive outpouring of communal support and love.

The social norms on acceptable behaviour end about half a mile from any football ground. Where the fighting starts. Ok, not as bad as it was, but there’s some for whom football and violence are synonymous. Similarly, the rules about sexism, racism, any-fucking-ism are suspended for the 90 minutes of play. And, more importantly, are lodged into the mindset of many fans as part of their value system. 100 million quid for Lukaku is ‘good value’ and so is cat-calling women, monkey-chanting at black players and calling your mate ‘gay’ because he’s only drinking 6 pints today.

Gareth Thomas, the wonderful Welsh rugby player, came out but just before his retirement from the game. He’d played 100 times for Wales, displayed levels of bravery and commitment beyond any call of duty and basically, proved himself more ‘manly’ than any man of any sexual preference. Possibly because he felt he had something to prove, but a man to be greatly admired.

When ‘Fash’ came out he suffered massively from the fans. And there was no social media back then. I sincerely hope young Jake is going to disconnect from Instagram, Twitter, all of it, for his own sake. Because it will be relentless. From opposing fans it will be constant. From his own fans, as Marcus Rashford will confirm, it’ll be worse if he has a bad day at the office. And he’ll be taunted mercilessly by opposing players trying to ‘wind him up’. Trying to get him to slap them.

I have nothing but admiration for this dude. I’m just not sure the whole world of ‘football’ is ready to accept its diversity quota in any meaningful way. Especially if Sharia law is the rule book at Newcastle. For whom I have nothing but thanks, admiration and love. Today.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx