you've made the decision to come out why is now the right time it's been such a long time of lying um and i've just processed and processed every day of just about how i want to do it when i want to do it and i think now it's just the right time to do it you know i feel like i'm ready to tell people about my story i want people to know the real me and lying all the times isn't what i wanted to do and it has been a struggle but now i just do
feel like i'm ready to be myself be free and just be confident with it all talk us through your journey when did you realize you were gay and what impact has that had on your football i can't really put a date on it but i'd say maybe five or six you know it has been quite a while at that age you don't really think of football and being game doesn't mix um so all the way through my life i was like yeah it's fine you'll get a girlfriend when you're older and you'll change and it'll
be fine and then as you do get older you realize you just can't and it's just something that you won't be able to do so i've had girlfriends in the past to try and make all my mates think that i'm straight and it was just a massive cover-up so it has been a struggle and then in school everyone else used to ask me you sure you're not gay and it was like no i'm not because i wasn't ready but just don't want to lie anymore did you feel as though you might need to hide who
you are to become a professional footballer yeah i think so obviously because there's no one out felt like i do need to hide it and wait until i've retired to maybe come out but i just knew that that was just such a long time of just lying and not being able to have what i want has it impacted on your mental health at all yeah it did impact my mental health but you know i just came across that just because i knew that what i wanted then it was just a short period of time of
just over thinking and stress and just a lot that came to my mind at once but now you know it's just all gone and i'm just confident and happy to be myself finally how important have your family been through this was it a huge sense of relief when you told your family yeah definitely my mum my sister obviously i lived with them and they were like yeah we already knew so they already have the idea of it and then when we told my whole family you know i was quite scared um with like the older
generation just because i didn't know how they would react but everyone's been so supportive i've had messages here and everywhere just saying you know we're proud and we're supportive so yeah it's been it's been amazing the day i told my mom my sister the day after we played atkinson and i scored four so it just shows how much of a weight off the shoulders it was and just a massive relief how much support have you had from the club during this process it's been absolutely amazing you know the club were the first people i told
and because that was the environment i'm in every day and i feel safe and then my teammates and they've all been so supportive about it and you know everyone's had their back i had my back and you know they've all been asking questions i've all been intrigued about what actually happened so you know it's been amazing and it's just the best thing i could have asked for you've told some of your teammates yeah how did they react everyone was just like you know kind of shocked in a way because people were saying why didn't you
tell us earlier which is quite a good thing it just shows that they they can you know the captain and he was one of the main people i told him he was just asking loads of questions about and he was like i'm just so proud of you and you know i like when people ask questions if i keep asking more you know i just want to get it all out and just people to hear my story everyone's just been so supportive and so proud of me and you know it just shows that what a bond
we have as a team and you know everyone is just like a family to each other did that reaction surprise you i'm guessing you had a few sleepless nights about yeah definitely you know i always over fought it and i was like are people going to be supportive about it because i didn't know you know it was a bit of a shock but i did kind of know that we are all a family and if you don't support it then you're not a true friend but everyone's been so supportive so yeah it's been it's been
amazing all i can ask for has it impacted on your behavior within the dressing room have you found yourself withdrawing from from conversations yeah a lot of the time so there definitely has been conversations where i've just been listening into just what they what what they have been saying just to know if it is the right time to come out and if i'm going to have that support behind me you've signed your professional contract you've scored 30 goals this season you've made your first team debut in the championship and now you've decided to come out
how do you reflect on the the last 12 months because it's been quite incredible yeah it's been a crazy year you know everything has kind of happened at once but it feels right came into this year just like i need to smash it i need to prove myself and you know i think i have just off the top of that you know i was like i'm having such a good year this one last thing in my head that's just been massive i just feel like i do need to come out and now it's out and
people know i just feel like i've done it you know it's live my life how i want you now and it's been amazing it's been incredible why do you think there is this big taboo in male professional football about being gay i think it comes down with a lot of footballers want to be known as like masculinity and i think being gay a lot of people use it as being weak so a lot of people would say like you're doing that because you're gay and they're gonna just say it's because you're weak and it's just
not the case so a lot of people don't want to do that because in football they are masculine and it's something that you can get picked on for on the field so not a lot of people want to do it but i think because no one's done it there's just no one has the confidence to do it yet so i want to be that role model to do it to maybe push people to be able to come out do you feel as though you can inspire others to come out you're only 17 but clearly you've
got clarity in your mind by coming out will other people look up to you and and maybe feel as though they can do it as well that's what i'm hoping for anyway you know i think because i'm younger people can think you know this kid's brave enough to do this so i think feel like i'll be able to and i just want to do that for other people and i want maybe if there is premier league footballers that are gay and are ready to come out or they want to and they just are waiting i
want someone to contact me and ask like how how's it been what was the reaction like so i want to help other people i just hate knowing that people are in the same situation that i'm in i think if a premier league footballer does come out you know that'll just be amazing you know i feel like i've done done my job and i've inspired someone else to do that but yeah i just want just want it to just go up from here you know it we shouldn't be where we are right now are you worried
about homophobia moving forward from fans and on social media you know i think it is an easy thing for people to target you know i'm kind of just learning that you know like say i'm playing football on the field and they're shouting stuff at me you know you're paying to watch me play football and i'm living my life and i'm making money from it so shout out what you want it's not going to make a difference you know so i feel like i can't stop people from saying that stuff but i just need to learn
for it not to affect me can it make a difference for fans as well because there will be blackpool fans who are gay fans from other clubs who are gay does this help to make football more inclusive for everyone yeah definitely you know people live their lives how they want to so i think you know it's going to be such a massive thing there's many people out there that are gay so just because i play for blackpool don't mean that other people can't support me and what would your message be to other people watching this
who want to come out but have felt fearful of doing that there's a lot of different aspects that other people think will scare them a lot especially in football you know some people will think that they're going to get targeted a lot so you know it's in their mind what they want but speak to people i know it's such a hard thing so such a hard thing for me to do was to speak to people but if you are ready then just speak to the closest people around you and just start off as a small
group of telling people and then if you do feel ready just make it bigger and you are going to get support
