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I grew up in a football household. What I mean by that is: my family are staunch, almost fanatical AFL football fans.
My entire family, on both my Mum and Dad’s side, are all Hawthorn supporters. Mum and Dad grew up on opposite sides of inner suburban Hawthorn in Melbourne, and I’ve always been a bit convinced that their union was partially driven by a shared love for the Hawks.
Our household walls are covered with posters from grand final winnings. We have a signed Hawthorn jersey hanging in our living room, framed under glass. Stay-at-home nights watching away games are punctuated by the hysterical screams of my footy-fan mother, as near misses and straight-up goals play out on the television.
We’d attend every home game along with our family. I’m Greek, so that’s around thirty-plus impassioned louts lining two straight rows. We were louder than the beer-swilling men in the members’ section, and could shove for space on the crowded post-game trains at Richmond Station better than anyone.
The vertigo from looking around a stadium at a game can only be overshadowed by the thrill when someone nearly kicks a goal, as the punters fire up, bite their nails and shout and scream – and the player lands it! The arena erupts with a giant howl that vibrates in your ears and makes your stomach flip with excitement.
Of the family present at these outings, I was one of the louder ones.
And then at some point, as I began to mature, something changed. I went to matches less and less.
At the time, I was trying to find my place in a world that, though I so often denied it, found me feminine by virtue of my homosexuality, and femininity in men an unspoken crime. I could either overcompensate through a charade of masculinity – or opt out entirely, and be seen as inherently less of a man.
I watched as football continued to assert itself as a man’s game: the shouting, swearing, and rough-and-tumble ferocity an intrinsic part of masculinity, one that was threatened by both gays and women. Not only that, but stories of homophobia fell out from within the game itself. How could I possibly adapt to that? I didn’t pass as a “bloke” – where did I fit in?
The simple fact was: I didn’t. And so I did away with my spectatorship, and receded into my queer adolescence, isolated with video games and crippling anxiety. No longer feeling like part of the cheer squad, I stopped going to games.
Now, years later, St. Kilda and Sydney major league football clubs will go head-to-head on August 13th at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, for the very first Pride Game. The St Kilda players will wear rainbow-patterned numbers on their guernseys, with Sydney sportsmen donning rainbow socks. Even the goalposts will be gayed up. It’s an undeniably iconic moment in AFL history.
The event is inspired in no small part by the work of ex-footballer-turned-community leader Jason Ball who, as the first footballer at any level to come out of the closet, helped unite local Yarra Glen and Yarra Junction football teams in the inaugural Pride Cup match of 2014, which continues annually to this day.
When you’re a boy feeling unwelcomed by boy-things, it’s as if no matter how close you get to a goal, you’re always passing with points or straight-up hitting the posts.
When an unruly spectator at an AFL match screams “poofter” at a player on the field, it’s a stark reminder for a red-hot minute that you’re not welcome there. It’s a casual and subtle nudge that football has and always will be, a man’s sport for manly men. No poofters allowed.
But with the Pride Game inbound in August, the model is swiftly changing. We’re seeing more footballers than ever stand up against homophobia. Players I was almost resentful of, for being the deified cultural symbols of masculinity, are showing the country that they won’t stand for that which holds the gay community down.
Australian Rules Football has, for what feels like far too long, struggled to tackle the bodies of bigotry, both in sport and in the culture that it creates. But with the advent of Pride Game, it is taking an active stance against the behaviour and intolerance that is rife within not just the sporting community, but in society at large.
One of the institutions, the very hallmarks of our country, is celebrating diversity, and challenging the ingrained notion that gays aren’t welcome in sport. It’s embracing a community who for years felt they weren’t allowed to exist, whether out in the open or out on the field.
It’s extending a loving hand to a young Brandon Cook, and letting him know that, whether he’s gay or straight, he can come along and raise the roof at Etihad Stadium with the rest of them.
And that’s what we call “kicking goals”.
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