Football must be ‘a home for everybody’ – Pitch creator Nell Bailey

The director of a play exploring experiences of the LGBTQ community in football said the game needs to provide “a home for everybody” and called for policy change to ensure the grassroots are made fully inclusive.

Nell Bailey, whose show Pitch was staged at Stamford Bridge over London Pride weekend in June as part of the Football vs Homophobia event to bring together football’s LGBTQ stakeholders, said that depicting queer players on stage was an important step in showing people from diverse backgrounds they had a place within the game.

The play, which depicts the fictional club ‘Hunky Glory’ as they take first steps playing outside of the exclusively LGBTQ community, was performed earlier this year at the National Football Museum in Manchester as well as enjoying a run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

“It’s about how we relate,” said Bailey. “It’s about seeing yourself or seeing someone you could be. That’s really important.

“Being an ally is important but also seeing yourself, seeing a representation of who you are, even if it’s in a fictional space, is really valuable.

“‘Hunky Glory’ isn’t a team that actually exists, it’s something we’ve created out of joy and what we would like football to be. People watch that and know that there are like-minded people out there thinking the same things.

“That in itself can be a trigger point for change and for action-taking. That’s important on a wider political scale.”

The play by November Theatre was devised in collaboration with the five-strong cast – Elijah Harris, Elizabeth Hope, Meg Lewis, Eleanor Rattenbury and Ethan Peters, all of whom are members of the LGBTQ community with a connection to football – as well as in conversation with other stakeholders at different levels of the game.

There is yet to be an active Premier League footballer to have come out in the men’s game, despite attempts made by the league, the FA and club-affiliated organisations in recent years to promote tolerance and inclusivity.

A report based on a YouGov survey published in May revealed that 46 per cent of fans consulted believe homophobia in football in the UK is either widespread or very widespread, whilst Football vs Homophobia reported at the end of the 2017-18 season that 63 per cent of respondents had experience some form of homophobic abuse at football.

Pitch seeks to present the lived experience of LGBTQ people in football in the hope it will help draw people towards the game who might otherwise have been put off, whilst strengthening the foundations on which to found positive change from within.

“When we first started we thought we’ve got to talk to people to make it,” said Bailey. “It’s got to come from lived experiences.

“We interviewed a lot of people and we spoke to teams and fans and players that have a queer lived experience of football, asked ‘what’s good about it, what sucks?’

“We gathered a cast, all of whom are people with various queer identities with a relationship to football.

“It was also born out of a lot of silliness, about ‘where is the lesbian football drama?’ ‘Are we bringing football to queerness or are we bringing queerness to football?’”

As well as support from the Chelsea Foundation, the play is being backed by Arsenal as the company looks to broaden its reach.

“We’ve received a grant from Arsenal in the Community,” said Bailey. “We’re doing a show at the Emirates (Stadium) for all of their community groups.

“We’re thinking about how the show continues to be in dialogue with spaces calling for change. And not just in the grassroots, there needs to be a home in football for everybody.

“And if that means policy change at a larger level, then that’s what we are here for.”