Paul Lewis: Thomas deserved better

Former league international Ian Roberts took offence at suggestions that he fancied his heterosexual teammates. Photo / Getty Images

If Gareth Thomas, the veteran Wales and Lions back, chose this time of year to become the first international rugby player to reveal that he is gay because he wanted to take advantage of the Christmas spirit, he must have been a little disappointed.

We can exempt the Cardiff and Welsh rugby teams because, from this long distance, they seem to have accepted and banded round their long-time team-mate in exemplary fashion. In fact, the acceptance throughout Wales seems in keeping with a country that can be so hugely hospitable, welcoming and loyal (sometimes to a fault).

It's been the media who have been a bit odd. The sad truth is that the three football codes - rugby, league and soccer - are the last great strongholds of homophobia, if not in the dressing rooms then on the terraces.

So a player being gay is news. It's also news because there have been so few of them. I have covered and followed All Black rugby over a period of decades and, to this day, can name only one gay All Black.

He never came out - so I can't tell you who it is in case he wants to sue the shoelaces off us. Logic insists there must be more but, if there are, it's a closely guarded secret.

Which made it odd that a lot of the media comment on Thomas's revelation has been of the "So what?" or "We knew anyway" variety.

Well, if they knew anyway, where was the story?

Only with the consistent telling of such stories will sport begin to follow more closely the lead of the rest of society where sexual orientation matters less than ability.

If Thomas' story was such an open secret in Wales, how come the likes of Eddie Butler (of Wales, Lions and Guardian fame) and Brian Moore (England, Lions and Daily Telegraph) couldn't find more to say about Thomas' bravery; if they knew so much, how come they never talked to "Alfie" and get him to do the story? Did they seriously think it wasn't news? Must have been a bit of a shock this last week, then.

Whatever you think about Thomas - and he can from all accounts be an excitable, flashpoint and not always endearing character - it took real guts to do what he did. Baring one's soul and sensitive parts to the hostile glare of the homophobes is courage indeed.

Perhaps the strangest reaction came from New Zealand Herald columnist Chris Rattue, who said he wouldn't blame footballing gays for not coming out or for doing so only after they'd retired (Thomas is still playing).

He also fastened on Thomas' statement that he had never fancied any of his team-mates.

"Thomas can't be serious in wanting us to believe that he never fancied any team-mates," Rattue wrote. It went against the law of averages, he said, to claim Thomas had never felt any desire towards the hundreds of team-mates he's taken the field with.

There it is; it's not just on the terraces or the dressing rooms. It's in the newsrooms as well. Why bring it out in the open and make us all feel uncomfortable? Choke it down and let it out when it's all over. Or not at all.

I'll defer at this stage to a bloke called Ian Roberts of Manly (ironic, huh?) and Australian rugby league. Roberts in his playing days was big, angular, raw-boned and prone to the Five-Knuckled Debating Society. He was also gay and brave enough to come out in 1996 - his admission creating a storm.

The wrinkled old chestnut of a gay footballer fancying the straights in the changing room was visited on Roberts, who said: "I take offence at the old locker-room argument which assumes a man cannot, in any circumstances, control his urges. Any self-respecting human being can respect the rights and ways of another human being. The idea, then, that gays can convert, or even want, heterosexual guys is ludicrous."

If you are still in any doubt about the bravery of Thomas and Roberts and co, take a look at the other sexual controversy which has dominated the end of the year - Tiger Woods.

Both were leading false lives. Both were married. One stood up and faced his demons. The other lied to begin with and is still counting the cost.

Thomas and his wife, even though they are divorcing, are still mates. Tiger's wife is having Christmas without him in Sweden.

Thomas was braver, more open; and is reaping the rewards.

He probably deserves better from a media which, having emblazoned his gayness across the world, then included comment from some who tried to argue that it didn't matter or that it should be hidden from gaze.

There's only one way that it will not matter - when such things are common enough that they cease to be news.

Gay footballers have a role to play in that. So do the media - not propagating hoary old myths such as the gay footballer leering across the changing room at a team-mate's buttocks.

To quote Roberts again: "Jeez, mate, there are 24,000 people dying of starvation every day and people want to talk about me being gay...?"