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Sport certainly takes its time about things. At least, when it comes to sexuality. We live in a world in which endless conundrums and variations of sexual behaviour are forever in front of us, in a thousand different areas of public life. It’s only when it comes to sport that things get all difficult and old-fashioned.
You can be a gay MP, or a gay vicar. You can be quietly or flamboyantly gay, according to choice, and still present television programmes. You can be a living national treasure and your status is not even remotely compromised by your sexuality.
We live in a time when civil partnerships between same-sex couples are not only sanctioned by law, they raise few eyebrows when they take place. Just the usual sort of rejoicing. What was illegal half a century ago is now not only legal: it is no big deal.
Except in sport. That is why it is both right and necessary to praise the courage of Gareth Thomas, the most capped player in the history of Welsh rugby, who has chosen to come out. It is not his courage that is troubling: it is the fact that courage was necessary.
Sport is not always behind the times. Sometimes it is quite the opposite. Sport was and is in the forefront of many of the issues about race. In the Seventies and early Eighties, when most worlds hesitated about promoting non-whites, West Bromwich Albion thrilled the nation with the Three Degrees. They gave us a team daringly and unprecedentedly built around three black players, Brendon Batson, Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis.
But in questions of sexuality, male team sports have always been in perpetual flight from the very notion of homosexuality. No doubt it comes down to the fact that a football team, a rugby team or a cricket team are by definition homocentric — that is to say, it is all about people of the same sex.
Such male groupings tend also to be homophobic. A group of people, working together with extraordinary intensity for a common cause, creates a situation of startling intimacy. There is, then, a consequent need to stress that though intimacy is desired, given and accepted freely, it has nothing at all to do with sex.
But outside, in the real world, homosexuality is now often encountered as an unremarkable fact of life. As such, it cannot help but be more easily understood. The idea that a homosexual, male or female, is radically different in every way from a heterosexual has long since vanished. When I was at school, the idea that homosexuals even existed was a matter of giggling incredulity.
Now every schoolkid understands the world better.
The thing about sport is that ability is not even remotely subjective. If you bend it like Beckham, or for that matter, if you can create mayhem on a rugby field, there is no room for denial. You may have a black skin, but that won’t hide your abilities.
But if you can’t hide skin colour, you can certainly hide sexuality — and that has been sport’s secret for years.
The rest of the world has changed: sport is, slowly, grudgingly, in its own time, catching up with the society it caters for. Let us salute Gareth Thomas and look forward to the day when the courage he showed is no longer necessary — or even comprehensible.
You can be a gay MP, or a gay vicar. You can be quietly or flamboyantly gay, according to choice, and still present television programmes. You can be a living national treasure and your status is not even remotely compromised by your sexuality.
We live in a time when civil partnerships between same-sex couples are not only sanctioned by law, they raise few eyebrows when they take place. Just the usual sort of rejoicing. What was illegal half a century ago is now not only legal: it is no big deal.
Except in sport. That is why it is both right and necessary to praise the courage of Gareth Thomas, the most capped player in the history of Welsh rugby, who has chosen to come out. It is not his courage that is troubling: it is the fact that courage was necessary.
Sport is not always behind the times. Sometimes it is quite the opposite. Sport was and is in the forefront of many of the issues about race. In the Seventies and early Eighties, when most worlds hesitated about promoting non-whites, West Bromwich Albion thrilled the nation with the Three Degrees. They gave us a team daringly and unprecedentedly built around three black players, Brendon Batson, Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis.
But in questions of sexuality, male team sports have always been in perpetual flight from the very notion of homosexuality. No doubt it comes down to the fact that a football team, a rugby team or a cricket team are by definition homocentric — that is to say, it is all about people of the same sex.
Such male groupings tend also to be homophobic. A group of people, working together with extraordinary intensity for a common cause, creates a situation of startling intimacy. There is, then, a consequent need to stress that though intimacy is desired, given and accepted freely, it has nothing at all to do with sex.
But outside, in the real world, homosexuality is now often encountered as an unremarkable fact of life. As such, it cannot help but be more easily understood. The idea that a homosexual, male or female, is radically different in every way from a heterosexual has long since vanished. When I was at school, the idea that homosexuals even existed was a matter of giggling incredulity.
Now every schoolkid understands the world better.
The thing about sport is that ability is not even remotely subjective. If you bend it like Beckham, or for that matter, if you can create mayhem on a rugby field, there is no room for denial. You may have a black skin, but that won’t hide your abilities.
But if you can’t hide skin colour, you can certainly hide sexuality — and that has been sport’s secret for years.
The rest of the world has changed: sport is, slowly, grudgingly, in its own time, catching up with the society it caters for. Let us salute Gareth Thomas and look forward to the day when the courage he showed is no longer necessary — or even comprehensible.
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