Julian Clary, the erstwhile successor to Kenneth Williams, once said of his alma mater that the two most popular pastimes were buggery and rugby. And, in a lot of cases, they were often combined!

Whereas football, or as American cousins call soccer, the so-called national sport, has an image that still reeks of its working class roots and, thereby, its clear heterosexual credentials, rugby especially the union code, remains unwilling, or unable to crossover into a wider audience. Some suggest it may have something to do with the legacy of the English public school, where the game has been taught generations of young men who would later run the British Empire, or its beery, laddish, antics, usually accompanied by dirty songs with lewd lyrics. With the acceptance of professionalism amongst the union and satellites supplying a television diet of league matches, there is still that clear whiff of homeroticism. How is it that soccer can be dubbed 'the beautiful game' but rugby, which is true contact sport, struggle to shrug off its queer inheritance? Growing up in the 1970's, football players would regularly kiss each other after scoring a goal. Their long hair, dodgy perms and flash cars never dispelled their aura of acceptable, blue collar, masculinity.

Rugby union had yet to shake off its toffee-nosed image or accept professionalism. Watching rugby league, mostly contained geographically in the North of England, was made laughable by the unintentional hilarity of listening to the late Eddie Waring, whose commentary style was up there with other sports commentators of the time, such as David Coleman and Murray Walker for on-air gaffes. Television comedy impressionists would often use Waring's most popular phrase of 'up 'n' under' delivered in a bad Yorkshire drawl, whilst wearing a trilby and a sheepskin jacket. Being one of the co-presenters of a tacky European game show, It's a Knockout, probably did more harm than good.

In Alisdare Hickson's 'The Poisoned Bowl', a book documenting generations of ex-public schoolboys experiences of sex and repression in their formative years, the Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair, who attended Harrow before World War Two, hints at one of the possible reasons why:

"First, I will declare my colour, which is totally heterosexual… [however] I had friends who later turned out of be homosexual: they were all tough games players!"

The rigid structure of schools such as Harrow, Eton and Rugby, of course, was largely to keep their pupils on the straight and narrow. Sport was one of the ways that masters could keep their young charges away from temptation, as well as toughening them up and avoiding them becoming effeminate. Victorian society had a cult of anti-effeminacy, which, when aligned to its adherence to muscular Christianity. The belief that it was beyond reproach, morally as well as militarily, the single sex English public school was the training ground for the British Empire's retinue of governors, archbishops and prime ministers to rule in perpetuity.

In the post-war era, where Cold War paranoia reigned supreme, the Establishment pursued Communist spies in a witch-hunt personified by Senator McCarthy in the United States, which led to a similar blitz on undesirables in Great Britain. What was uncovered was not only individuals leaning to the Left, but with other leanings too. One victim was John Vassall, an Admiralty clerk, who was tried and convicted on espionage charges, and served eight years. A journalist reporting on the case, visited Vassall's apartment in Dolphin Square, a residential block, once the home of the writer Angus Wilson, near the Thames, where he discovered Vassall's cuddly toys and his cuttings from French newspapers of 'stocky, hirsute rugby players'.

In David Plummer's 'One of the Boys', which is a study of masculinity, homophobia and modern manhood, drawn from research carried out in his native Australia, the legacy of these strictures was apparent, even in the late twentieth century. Until recently, the number one rule down under was no poofters! Sport was, and is, used to regulate male intimacy. If a boy wanted to be accepted amongst his male peers, and avoid accusations of being a 'poof', it was a good idea to show aptitude at sport, especially if it was a team sport.

Australia, as with most English speaking countries, and former bastions of the British Empire have become more tolerant societies. It was still a shock, however, in 1995, when Ian Roberts, one of the best front rows in Australian rugby league during the 1980's, and who became one of the country's highest paid players when he left the South Sydney club to play for Manly in 1989, came out.

His public statement of his sexuality was met by almost unanimous public support, and ended his career playing for the North Queensland Cowboys, a state, which up until recently, was not known for its tolerance of gays. Having stopped playing, he has maintained a visible presence and a spokesman for the queer community in his homeland.

Compare and contrast that to the slow, sad decline of Justin Fashanu, whose sporting career span out of control, not helped by his coming out, ending in suicide and tabloid degradation. One of the first black British soccer players to achieve prominence, despite overcoming colour prejudice, his dwindling career and his coming out appeared to conspire to contribute to his eventual demise. Even his brother and professional professional, John Fashanu, denounced him after his sibling's public declaration of his sexuality.

In the same year that Ian Roberts made his historic statement, on the other side of the globe, the world's first gay rugby club was being founded. Namely, the Kings Cross Steelers, which has gone from strength to strength and has had a positive effect on the wider world of rugby.

What a transformation from the depiction of rugby league in the late Lindsay Anderson's portrayal of an ambitious player in This Sporting Life, that shot Richard Harris to international superstardom. Harris, himself a rugby player back home in Ireland, was convincing as a player on, as well as off, the pitch. It is considered one of the great British films of the 'kitchen sink' era. Considered a classic, but last in line of this short-lived homegrown genre, as it may have enamoured the critics, but it was a box-office flop. It is no surprise to learn that the homoerotic tension onscreen was a mere reflection of the director's own unrequited lust of his nascent leading man. Harris was wholly convincing as the hard drinking misogynist thug, who put ambition before all else; using all those who loved him, male and female, around him. That was the days when footballers could fall out of the pitch before kick-off and run onto the pitch, seemingly none the worse for wear.

Whilst comical characters, such as Eddie Waring, may have disappeared and the notion of amateurism in most sports has disappeared, the advent of satellite television has certainly transformed rugby league from a parochial sport to a faster, more athletic, and undoubtedly sexier version of its old self. With the queering of the pitch by gay athletes, in general, masculinity and machismo are slowly being separated and made it more acceptable for male beauty, especially in the form of a muscular rugby player, league or union, gay or straight, ready to strip for the camera. All without embarrassment, or protestations of heterosexuality. This more than anything else, demonstrates rugby's more tolerant attitude. Whereas a player, such as David Beckham, teases the public with metrosexuality, the French rugby union squad could pose naked for a calendar, with barely a Gallic eyebrow raised. And, Jonny Wilkinson, who delivered the drop goal that won England the World Cup in 1993, and in its aftermath, happily modelled for a male boutique and no batted an eyelid.

© Howard Watson 2008