The sport that makes grown men cry like babies, and its need to grow up

Question: What fosters a greater sense of loyalty/intimacy, sex or playing on the same team?

This came up sometime last year under circumstances that seemed interesting at the time. The question, though, seemed rather more interesting than the circumstances, and I have spent the last six months, clocking unlimited miles, on a personal research project to arrive at a conclusive answer.

Of course, my research was thoroughly biased. As cool as it would be to say that I have been scouring the earth in search of companions with whom I could test the parameters of my hypothesis, I have to admit that isn’t the case. Instead—thanks to the best job in the world and an editor who doesn’t say no to travel unless she absolutely has to—it’s been a six-month all you can eat football buffet.

It began in New Delhi. Home is always the starting point. Here there is easy access to boys of all ages. If you are confused now about what this “research” entailed, don’t be alarmed. These boys of all ages form Yatagan United, the small, unfunded and thoroughly unprofessional weekend football club I am happy to be a part of. Unknowingly, they became a part of my experiment. Every Saturday and Sunday, I would come back from the game, go into my study and lock myself up for hours so that my findings would be recorded for posterity. Okay, maybe after football I just went for a few beers with the same boys, but, if I had a study I am sure I would have locked myself in it.

Anyway, the point is that I began to get confused and frustrated very quickly. I walked into this exercise putting team sport (football in particular) on the same venerated plane as that most holy of male pursuits—the hunt for the female. I thought that the bond shared by men who played on the same team was in some way superior to the one created by sharing a bed. I thought that the homoeroticism of bum-slapping and communal showers eclipsed hand-holding and making out in movie halls. Oh, but I was wrong.

Within a month, the desertions began. Some—and it hurt me so much to realise I was one of the traitors—moved on to other, equally unprofessional clubs. Clubs with names like South Delhi Dynamos, for the love of god. The crimes of others were even more horrific. Tales of dalliances with the violin, salsa lessons, college examinations and shopping trips with girlfriends shook the very foundation of my universe. Everything I had believed in for over a quarter of a century was falling apart. Where was this hallowed brotherhood?

Its called various things in various places. The prowl, the hunt, shikaar. All terms used to indicate a predatory, macho activity. The object can be food, booze or women. It doesn’t matter that we are now food producers. Man will always be on the hunt.

In the next few months the research project went from Delhi to Doha, where the Indian team was playing. Then back home and to Assam, Kerala, Kolkata, Goa, and finally to Wembley, the home of football and venue for the 2011 Champions League final (more on that later, but if you can't wait, you can pick up a copy of Sports Illustrated India for just 50 bucks at a newsstand near you). And it was finally at Wembley that it hit me. I was never going to have my “hence proved” moment.

Watching Ryan Giggs turn out for the 16,793,000th time for Manchester United drove home the all-important fact. Giggs is the anomaly. He is one of the few footballers who chose a club and remained loyal to it. In his personal life he may have been the hunter, but he made his choice. The team came first.

Most others, whether they play professionally or just a weekend kickabout, fail on both counts. If a top striker suddenly wants to move from Barcelona to Madrid, it is quite possible that he is as enticed by the extra 50,000 pounds a week, as he is by the prospect of exploring a new world of female wares.

There was something said about football being a metaphor for life and if it is, it is pretty ugly. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sport. But as I attempt to go the other way, to find the loyalty factor, I don’t like what my sport says about me. Or what I say about the sport.

Footballers are a tribe, or maybe a pack. Hundreds of pro footballers have spoken at length and on the record about the variety in their sex lives. It is the all-important stamp of virility. “I play football= I can do it like a stallion.” But when there is a wolf who separates from the pack, he gets eaten alive.

Justin Fashanu was the first black footballer in Britain to command a million pound transfer fee when he went to Nottingham Forest in 1980. He was also gay and after years of keeping quiet about his sexuality, he told the world. If he thought coming out would help, it didn’t. the focus became even more glaring. Fashanu eventually moved to the US and ended up killing himself in 1998 after he was accused (and later cleared) of having committed sexual assault. Between 1990 and 2008, not a single professional footballer made a similar disclosure.

Then there was the case of Graeme LeSaux, the former Chelsea and England leftback who I should have the honour of meeting tomorrow afternoon. Le Saux is not gay, yet he had to deal with being labeled a homosexual and taunted for it throughout his playing career. Apparently it was because he didn’t go out drinking enough with the boys and he read the Guardian. If that equals gay then I suppose going to university would make you a “flaming queen”.

In England, racism is not a major problem on the football field any longer. Fans don’t make the monkey noises and throw bananas onto the pitch when they see a balck player, like they still do in some other parts of Europe. But being gay would be like being black in the 50s. Sexuality and sexual choice is taken as a weakness and exploited ruthlessly. In his book, Le Saux recounts an incident, “At Anfield once I went over to the touchline to get the ball because a kid in the crowd was holding it. “He was no more than 10 and his dad was next to him. “You fucking poof, you take it up the arse,” he screamed at me. His dad joined in.” The kid was 10.
There are many more such incidents that illustrate why gay footballers are frightened of coming out, but also that football does nothing to stand up for gay rights.

In trying to find the answer to the sex versus team sports question, I had failed. But in the state of the game may lie a crucial bit of insight into another big question—why so many women hate football.

Being the more mature and tolerant of the sexes, I’m guessing more heterosexual women are gay-friendly than heterosexual men. More heterosexual women are certainly more gay-friendly than heterosexual (male) footballers. So is it this seething vortex of homophobia what has driven the female billions away from what is otherwise the most beautiful game on the planet? Or is it just revulsion that comes with recognizing the quality of a man who plays football? The realization that he will turn his back on her for a younger, newer model as easy as he would change the badge on the shirt he pulls on every Saturday evening.