A footballer has said abandoned his favourite sport in fear of how he would be treated if he came out as gay.
Colin Dowling, from Rock Ferry, stopped playing football as a result of the abuse he heard others faced because of their sexuality and missed out on around nine years of playing the sport he “loved to death.” Explaining how it was the “worst decision” he ever made, the 42-year-old often wonders what level of team he could be representing now if he had “just been stronger.”
The government administrator, who realised he was gay at 13, said the uncertainty about being who he really was was only amplified every time he stepped out of the locker room, onto the pitch and heard homophobic chants.
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He told the ECHO : “I wish I could travel back in time and change the decision I made but I just didn’t feel I’d be accepted and welcomed around my teammates. You would hear the usual homophobic slurs getting hurled at players, especially when they lost.
"That would then tend to spill over to social media in the next coming hours or days. It just put you under so much more pressure than if you weren’t hearing this abuse you might have actually played better because you could focus on the job you were there to do which was to win the game.”
Conquering his fear, Colin now plays centre forward for three different teams, including The Rainbow Toffees, an LGBTQ+ inclusive team. And while sometimes doubts linger back into his head, he emphasised they were nothing to do with his skills but more so about who he is underneath the football kit.
He added: “Thankfully, now in grassroots using certain words can get players straight red cards, so it’s nice to see that’s upheld by the FA. It has definitely improved but to say it has been completely erased is naive. It used to affect me massively, but since I came back into the game, I’ve just shrugged it off and let my boots do the talking as I find my football ability the best way to quieten down the narrow-minded.”
Sport in the UK has long been rife with homophobia and is considered an unsafe place for LGBTQ+ players. A House of Commons report concluded that “despite the significant change in society’s attitudes to homosexuality in the last 30 years, there is little reflection of this progress being seen in football.”
Jayne Caudwell, a university associate professor in social sciences, has covered gender and sexualities within sports extensively. She believes more could be done by governing bodies to get homophobia eradicated as much as racism has.
She told the ECHO : “I think for me as an academic seeing the research that's been done, especially around homophobia, there's evidence that the anti-discrimination campaigns that are being implemented are actually ineffective and they've really fallen short. It's fine for fan groups like Gay Gooners or Proud Canaries to try and make a difference from that level but there's no real substance from the governing bodies.
"When victims want to report situations they have to go through a long-winded protocol of investigation and often get alienated along the way or dropped from their team. The small change in acceptance for gay footballers hasn’t come from anything the FA has done but from change within broader society."
Men’s professional football is the last of the UK’s three most popular sports, following rugby and cricket, to have an active, elite professional player come out. Rugby player Gareth Thomas came out in 2009, cricketer Steven Davies came out in 2011 and footballer Jake Daniels coming out earlier this year.
Colin hopes the bravery of Jake Daniels will have an impact on the sporting industry moving forward. He said: “Jake has made a huge step forward for th e LGBTQ+ community in football.
"I certainly hope it will inspire people and help others realise that it doesn’t matter about your sexuality, it’s all about your ability as a player and that’s the only thing that should be judged.
"If he was about when I was younger it might have changed how I felt. But it all comes down to the environment, the crowd and the stadium around you. That is the most daunting part. I hope this season for Jake, his first season as publicly out, that we do not see any more of the chants.”
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