"Does your boyfriend know your here?" "We can see you holding hands. " These comments may seem as banter in the context of a football match. However imagine that your a teenager growing up as lesbian, gay or just questioning your sexuality. How would this make you feel especially if it was sung by your own fans. Well this is the reality for thousands of LGBT supporters especially if your team plays against Brighton and Hove Albion. In the English game, Brighton have to endure homophobic chanting as the seaside city has a large LGBT population, of which I'm one.
I'm also a Spurs fan and had to sit through a torrent of such abuse when Tottenham Hotspur played the Seagulls as Brighton are called, when their brand new stadium was christened with an opening friendly match. To disagree with your own side can be disheartening to say the least and it spoilt for me, as a gay man, what should have been a great day. By singing these songs, your own fans are making you feel unworthy and isolated, not an experience supporters would want to feel.
So when I became one of the Chairs of the Proud Lilywhites, the LGBT fan group for Spurs, I was determined to do something about it. And as fate would have it be, we drew Brighton in an early round of the League Cup. This presented us with a challenge , to work with our own supporters to avoid a repetition of that behaviour. What really helped was that since our birth as a supporter group, we had invested in a visible presence by flying our own version of the Rainbow flag at all home matches. This became a positive talking point as fans became to realise by our presence that there were a sizeable number of LGBT supporters and their allies ie you may have a LGBT sibling that would be offended by comments. Also we had through social media put out gentle reminders that homophobia wasn't fair. On the night there wasn't one homophobic chant, no arrests or reports of anything offensive said against the LGBT community. In fact if people were thinking of saying or singing something, the flag acted as a visible deterrent.
The Proud Lilywhites is one of a growing number of LGBT supporters groups that have emerged in England during the past two seasons. There are now a dozen LGBT Groups and these can be found at Arsenal (Gay Gooners); Everton (Rainbow Toffees); Norwich City (Proud Canaries); West Ham (Pride of Irons); Leicester City(Foxes Pride); Crystal Palace (Proud and Palace); Liverpool (LGBT Liverpool ); Portsmouth (Fratton Fever); Charlton (Proud Valiants); Notts County (LGBT Pies).
They vary in size of membership, some allow allies who don't identify as LGBT to join and some are recognised officially by their club as a recognised supporters club. By far and away the most successful group in terms of visibility is Canal Street Blues, the Manchester City group. They have representation on their club's supporters trust. Recently during Manchester Pride weekend, the group were successful in getting the club to display a banner around the Ethiad stadium, the players wore Football v Homophobia tshirts when warming up, there was a full page feature in the match programme and the Rainbow flag flew over the pitch.
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