A non league player turned manager opens up on coming out as gay, not just to his family and friends, but to his teammates too.
Thetford Town’s Matt Morton shared his journey to mark Coming Out Day and how his sexuality has helped change attitudes, and just announcing it is a big thing to do.
The popular figure in East Anglian football revealed it two years ago, when he was just a footballer for the Eastern Counties League Premier Division club.
Thetford Town’s Matt Morton says he is happy to be a rarity in the men’s game – an out gay footballer – as he shares his story on #ComingOutDay | @jonboy79
— Sky Sports (@SkySports) October 11, 2020
Morton describes himself as “a typical alpha-male footballer – vocal, one of the lads, an established character”. He was 30 when he came out as gay to his closest friend, and it was met with a shocked initial reaction.
“I can’t repeat his exact words, but it was something like ‘are you winding me up?’,” recalls Morton. “You can imagine living with someone for a long period of time, playing football with them, they’re your best mate, they’re like family and you had no inkling. It was a bit of a shock for him.”
Morton says he had no idea he had feelings for men really until he met someone in January 2018 and found himself attracted to someone of the same sex. “It felt very surreal to me, but at the same time it felt very natural,” he says. He’s had relationships with women throughout his 20s and he had never questioned his sexuality before.
“I didn’t have that Disney romance at any point with any of the girls that I dated and therefore everything else around me became more important,” he explains. “All of my time went into football, work and friends, and therefore there was no time left. That was a good excuse for me growing up.”
Thetford Town’s Matt Morton says he is happy to be a rarity in the men’s game – an out gay footballer – as he shares his story on #ComingOutDay
— Sky Sports (@SkySports) October 11, 2020
He is now discussing what he’s learned from his experiences and how it relates to football to mark Coming Out Day, in the hope that he can help raise awareness around the process and why it’s tough for LGBT+ people, particularly young men in football and other sports.
It’s not just a single day, it took months for him to feel ready and able to reveal that he was attracted to men. He first opened up on it to his PA as “it felt safer because she worked for me, and it was one step removed from everyone else”.
He then told his best mate, and again when he felt ready, revealed to other close friends, his siblings, his parents, his other teams (Sunday league), his Instagram followers last summer, and now to the media to help others in the same position, even those who are finding it tough to admit to themselves or the reaction they’d go on to get especially from loved ones.
It’s easy to think how everyone is more and so accepting of each other’s sexuality these days, but the hate and disowning that goes on because of a person being LGBT+, there is a reason why no current professional footballer in English football still feels unable to come out.
We’d like to think everyone will be accepting of it, and fingers crossed more do so, but we also could see trolling online and offline, several media outlets will hammer them and get their photographers to harass every part of their gay lifestyle.
There are several players that have gone on to announce they are gay after their playing careers has finished, or they’ve announced it after leaving England for football in another country. Let’s change this.
Thetford’s Matt Morton left his best friend shocked but fully supportive after coming out. Other close mates were also happy for Morton, as were his elder brother and sister.
“They thought they knew – it turns out they’d discussed it once. ‘Why doesn’t any relationship that Matt has get serious, why is nobody seemingly ever what he wants?’ But obviously they were never sure. All the reactions were good bar a couple, and they were the ones I was expecting. They took a bit longer.”
The coming-out chat with both parents was difficult, at first. “It didn’t come from a place of hatred; it came from a place of ignorance. I can only imagine that for my dad – for a short period of time – it was like a little part of his world fell apart.
“We didn’t talk for a few weeks and that was my decision. It was the right thing to do, even though I know that it hurt him a lot. But that might have also played a big part in his willingness to be educated around it.
“It’s important to say that he’s always been fine with any gay people he’s met. It’s just that when it’s your own son telling you after however many years… I felt that he was disappointed in me. He looked at me in a different way – but that got resolved really quickly.”
Morton’s mum, who has a strong Christian faith, struggled with his news. Though the family unit remains tight, and he feels fortunate. “I’ve had very good parents, a good family life, so there’s no sob story with me at all. But I’ve always had a short fuse.
“The thing I’ve noticed now that I’m a lot more tolerant of certain things than I was prior to coming to this realisation. That was never a conscious decision because I didn’t know I was gay. But subconsciously, there must have been an underlying factor that would cause me to react.
“There’s something in that, for sure. Ultimately, I’m happier now than ever before.”
Morton posted to Instagram about coming out a year after he first told friends and family. “Everyone was saying to me that you don’t need to announce it or explain yourself. I’m aware of that, but I wanted to own it, and say, ‘this is me, this is what I’ve realised’. It’s a lot better than it was 10 years ago, but there still needs to be activation around understanding, and events like Pride, because there’s still a long way to go.
“For me, I’m certainly not the type of person that wants people to find out organically through conversations down the local pub or on a football pitch or anything else. I would rather own that and then I’ll have your reaction to me, or not at all.”
On there not being many gay and bi men in football , he said: “I’m acutely aware that being a player-manager coming out in the non-league scene is relatively unique. But that means you can help all the future people who want to do that by going first. That’s important to me. If my shoulders are broad enough to support others who then want to follow in my footsteps, then great.”
Does he feel he can help to alleviate that? “Everybody’s different and has their own decision to make, and nobody should be forced to come out sooner than they’re ready to do it, if at all.
“All I can say, from my experience, is that I wish I’d done it as soon as I knew, because it brings everything forward a year and you always want to get time back, I guess. I wish I’d realised it about myself 10 years earlier than I did, or even longer.
“Crucially, I wouldn’t wish those things if the experience was anything other than liberating. Everyone needs to realise that, for a start.”
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