"I"m not bothered, it wasn"t brave"

“Happy as a faggot in a submarine.”

Andre Agassi has made quite the transition from oaf to Zen-like statesman and ace biographer. Still, when he decided to share his sense of the world with the world after winning the French Open Championship in 1999, there were number of things to consider. Who laughed and why and how did Agassi believe he could make the comment at a press conference?

Yeah, he got away with it.

Always the clown, Goran Ivanisevic has also been a high-achiever in disparaging language. With his liberal use of the word ‘faggot’, the Croatian is placed highly in the league table for bashers of ‘poofters’ ‘benders’ and ‘queers’. As with Agassi, it hasn’t hurt the image of the 2001 Wimbledon winner or his popularity.

The locker room was and still is a Serengeti where you run with the herd or you perish. In Ireland these are transitional days. Well hopefully. Possibly. Maybe.

Big names came out. Welsh rugby international Gareth Thomas in 2009, the same year as former Cork goalkeeper Donal Óg Cusack. Others followed. Conor Cusack, Donal’s brother, Olympic diver, Tom Daley, London 2012 gold medal winning boxer, Nicola Adams and former German soccer international Thomas Hitzlsperger.

Minority group

A minority group that has always seemed to get a good kicking, critics point at a team-sport culture that has declined or is unable to change an environment that mercilessly suppresses any expression of sexuality other than hyper hetero. Reasons given: fear and ignorance of difference.

Others inescapably think no further than the physical act, believing it to be sinful. Yes, believe it, God’s opprobrium too. The locker room and church have never been cold places for extreme views. “You’re involved in lads’ culture. Everything is discussed in the dressing room from sport to opinions about women,” says Brian ‘Bru’ Amerlynck.

“And the term faggot and queer . . . they’re using derogatory terms and insults, not in a malicious way. They are throw -away comments heard in the play ground, secondary school, right up the changing room.

“No one chooses to be gay. You can’t change yourself. It would be nice to think words like faggot, homo, queer would be viewed by society as just as offensive as the nigger word.”

A Garda, who plays rugby with AIL side Suttonians, Amerlynck last week debuted for the senior team in their defeat to Ulster’s Instonians. A back, he plays alongside his brother, Mark, who’s the tighthead prop on the side. A Belgian name from his father’s side, he grew up in Dublin kicking what rolled and bounced – rugby with St Paul’s, Gaelic Football with Kilbarrack and Raheny’s Naomh Barrog and soccer with Sherriff Street under-18s.

Good players

“But rugby was what I wanted to do,” he says. “I played for St Paul’s played against some good players . . . against Jamie Heaslip in SCT in 2000. Yeah, we lost to Newbridge in the first round at Donnybrook. Heaslip was number 8. Even then he was head and shoulders above the rest.

“Played with the French prop Vincent Debaty too. We played together in the Belgium underage team, when I was there in 2000 for the U19s. It was for a World Cup qualifier in Lithuania in March 2000. Debaty was born in Belgium and then he moved to France.”

Article source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2608502/Turn-Your-Face-Jesy-Nelson-panics-pitch-performing-Twickenham-rugby-stadium.html

"I"m not bothered, it wasn"t brave"