Rugby takes the lead over football in tackling Homophobia

This weekend at Bramall Lane a team will take to the hallowed turf in a Championship fixture wearing a special kit, with the shirt emblazoned with the words "Homophobia: Tackle it!".  That team will be Sheffield Eagles Rugby League team, when they take on Widnes Vikings on Sunday afternoon in the Co-Operative Championship. I've seen little mention of this initiative outside of local media and rugby league circles, but in wearing the shirts, the Eagles have become the first sporting club in the country to make such a statement in this way.

For one match only the club will wear a special kit sponsored by LGBT History Month and Pride Sports and is a key part of the Rugby Football League’s celebrations of LGBT History Month, which began on February 1.

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Some may question their motivation for doing this. It's a bold statement for a club that has always stood out for trying to do things differently and have tried hard to ingratiate themselves to local sports fans in an area outside of the true Rugby League heartland of West/East Yorkshire and Lancashire. This is something emphasised by former player and Eagles' Chief Executive Mark Aston. “

We’re delighted to be able to do our bit to highlight the fight against homophobia. The Eagles have always been a progressive club and we believe it’s a cause worth supporting. We’re proud to be the first Rugby League club to take a stand.”

The club is reliant on the support of a core of local businesses whose corporate support is vital to ensure the continued existence on the back of meagre matchday support. The closeness of the corporate circle supporting the club probably allows them to make this kind of decision more easily than some of the traditionally bigger clubs with different kinds of club/sponsor relationship, probably more akin to football teams.

In fact it was after director Chris Nobile attended an LGBT workshop at the RFL Equality and Diversity conference for clubs that the initiative was undertaken and follows a number of recent groundbreaking achievements by Rugby League including being in the Stonewall Top 100 Workplace Index, becoming the first sports organisation ever to be named as a leading LGBT friendly employer, an accolade that followed Gareth Thomas’s recognition as the 2010 Stonewall LGBT Hero of The Year. The RFL also recently became the first sports organisation ever to launch a match day Tackle It! ‘Textline’ service for fans at all professional and semi-professional clubs.

But unless the national media really pick up on this, where can this really benefit the cause and what does it do for the Eagles? The corporate financial support given extends to projects to push Rugby League into local schools, something the Eagles have been hugely impressive with  and vital in establishing a foothold in the hearts and minds of local people. Maybe it is here, pushing the message that such behaviour is unacceptable, that it could really start to have an impact, rather than promoting it to a thousand or so people scattered around Bramall Lane.  

There has also been a decision made to sell the special kit, although the market for such merchandise is much more limited than football.  Maybe the real benefit is in other clubs, seeing the Rugby Football League (RFL) support for the initiative, will follow suit. A Super League team, wearing such a message in a Sky covered fixture would certainly have more impact.

It will be interesting to see how this story develops in the next couple of days. Credit to the Eagles for taking this stance, I hope it gets the wider publicity it deserves. But it also got me thinking, would we ever see such a move by a football club?

Clubs have been happy to promote charities through special shirts (pink shirts for breast cancer awareness being the obvious example), but also full shirt sponsorship at the expense of commercial sponsorship (Sheffield Wednesday - The Childrens' Hospital, Aston Villa - Acorns) or one off promotion of a charity for a  single match at the expense of and with the agreement of the existing sponsor (Sheffield United adopted The Childrens' Hospital in the Sheffield Derby last year).

Outside of charitable causes, the highly successful "Let's Kick Racism out of Football" campaign has often been promoted by clubs on specific matchdays and it has in some cases replaced the club's sponsor on the shirts. The campain includes reference to homophobia but it's not explicit in its name. In addition with local initiatives, such as the Football Unites Racism Divides and the United Initiative at Sheffield United, the clubs are happy to promote football as a way of encouraging social/racial inclusion in local communities. Yet homophobia is something football is finding as hard to tackle as Lionel Messi. Why?  

Many bloggers have written about the issue before and probably more eloquently than I can. I refer you to twohundredpercent here and IBWM /Obscure Football here. The fact remains that Football V Homophobia organised by the hard working The Justin Campaign received little widespread publicity on Football v Homophobia Day last month, not least from the clubs themselves.

Two years ago Stonewall claimed that football is "institutionally homophobic", one year on in February last year, the PFA claimed that players had refused to appear in a campaign video against homophobia for fear of ridicule. What makes them any different to Rugby players in that respect? Public profile maybe? After all Max Clifford has claimed that he would advise a young player against coming out due to the impact on his career.

Anton Hysen's announcement that he was gay this week caused ripples in certain UK papers, maybe more so because he is the son of former Liverpool defender Glenn, but headlines like FOOTBALL GAY "OUT" in the ever forward thinking Daily Star (over 1.5 million readers) perhaps emphasises Clifford's point.

If players from separate clubs brought together are not willing to support the cause, surely there is a better chance of doing it as a team? What the Eagles have done works because it has a whole team behind it. Challenge the message, you are challenging the whole squad and not individuals. A sad state of affairs maybe, but a way of taking it forward. Hopefully mentioning what the Eagles are doing will give it wider publicity, but will a football club be next to take up the mantle?

I'll have a Carling please

Another season, another opportunity to decry English football's cup competitions. If there isn't a plan to meddle with the format of the FA Cup because it "isn't working", there must be an apparent (to some) groundswell of opinion proposing the scrapping of the League Cup. Or, if it's this season, both.

Sadly type the words "scrap league cup" into Google and it reveals posts on internet forums of clubs such as Bolton and Arsenal, several general football forums and bizarrely a Celtic forum. The proposal on the latter being to scrap English and Scottish League Cups for an Anglo Scottish Cup. What, like the Anglo Scottish Cup that gave me one of my first live football watching experiences - Sheffield United v Grimsby Town?

Quite frankly, I find these kind of proposals ludicrous. Ideas from footballing authorities who seemingly have little idea of how to run the game, little idea of how to apply a moral and professional code of conduct and are more than happy to ignore their own internal rules when the occasion suits. Ideas subsequently stirred up by a media happy to sensationalise such proposals as a disappointing change in times, yet at other times revel in the avaricious world of modern day football.

Many claim there is no need for a secondary cup competition, it places an unnecessary burden on over-worked players and detracts from other priorities. This will be the same clubs who are more than happy to use "free weekends" and international weeks to take the players off on long flights for warm weather training or behind closed doors friendlies. Do I have any sympathy for Spurs and Jermaine Defoe? Not much.

No one complained about the League Cup in the 70's and 80's when there was a proliferation of other knockout distractions that clubs seemed content to participate in; the Watney Cup, the Anglo Italian Cup, the Anglo Scottish Cup, the Full Members Cup. All short-lived, but all sitting alongside the two primary cup competitions. Granted football is different now, not necessarily for the better. You can finish fourth and enter the "Champions League" with it's bloated group stages and an enforcement for season ticket holders  to buy tickets. As for the Europa League….

So who does the League Cup operate for. Well, firstly, the members of the organisation who runs it. Although the two legged early round matches were scrapped, this has probably provided a greater opportunity for small club progression. More likely to gain a result in a one off game than, have a great 90 minutes and then get soundly beaten a week later.

Earlier this season theseventytwo.com wrote of the importance of the Carling Cup to teams in League 1 and 2, yet it can be important to teams higher up the ladder to. Back in 2002/03, my team Sheffield United had cup runs in both the FA Cup and League Cup, ending in unlucky defeats to Arsenal in the FA Cup (with the wonder save from David Seaman) and Liverpool after extra time in the League Cup. We subsequently lost the Championship Play Off Final to Wolves and it would have been easy to blame the cup exertions for the fact that we failed to turn up at the Millennium Stadium, but at the time what concern was it? If it hadn't been for the League Cup run, we wouldn't have had nights like this……

If anything the Carling Cup run was more memorable than the FA Cup run that season, victories over  Palace and Sunderland and two goals in the final 3 minutes to come from behind to beat Leeds. Happy days, thrilling nights, the spectacle enhanced under the glare of the Bramall Lane nights.

So it is good for the Football League, but there is a case for saying that it is good for the Premier League teams too and not just those outside the Top 6.  7 years ago I visited Cardiff, ostensibly as a neutral, but in reality supporting my wife's team Bolton Wanderers as they played Middlesboro in the Carling Cup final. It was a great occasion, witnessed by the real supporters of both sides. Not just a day out at a cup  final, but a match where everything was up for grabs....the cup, the prestige, a place in Europe in a hugely competitive match. This is the same prize Birmingham earned on Sunday. I don't particularly like Birmingham as a club, their success didn't please me in the way other "underdog" victories have, but fair play to them. They picked strong line ups and beat three Premier League teams on route to the trophy. It was deserved.

Although  I may dislike the Mr Creosote like UEFA Cup/Europa League "I'll have just another wafer thin excuse for an extra group game or 4" there is no doubting the importance of the European competition in previous seasons to Middlesboro, Fulham and, this season, Liverpool. Granted not all gained there place from the League Cup. In fact, in a season where Liverpool's opportunities for success are so limited, you cannot help but feel they may regret their defeat on penalties to Northampton in round three.

The detractors point to low crowds, but times are hard, the cost of watching football is high and people prioritise. 46,000 people still saw the worth in watching Manchester United beat Wolves back in October. Well below capacity but still significant numbers. Any additional match is an additional cost that gets harder and harder to swallow. They say that the so called big clubs will rest players, blood the youngsters, but the very same clubs are just as likely to rest players and use their squad in Premier League games and sometimes it is not just the "big clubs"!

Find me a club or a group of fans that don't want to play in a cup final, that don't want to win a cup. Arsenal fans were much derided for their rapid exit from Wembley on Sunday, a majority having left before their players had collected their medals, but to me that just exemplifies the importance of the League Cup.

Yes, there was an element of disappointment in the manner of their defeat, but just as likely was significant disappointment in not winning the trophy - full stop. They might still have an opportunity to win 3 trophies this season and what most would consider to be more prestigious competitions. They might protest that, because of the other opportunities,  actually the League Cup doesn't matter. I don't believe them. Their actions on Sunday speak louder than words.