COMING OUT

Hugo Scheckter was a boy at Charterhouse, an independent school in the heart of the Surrey countryside. His father was Jodie the successful racing driver. So Hugo came from privileged stock and he made the most of his time at one of the great independent schools.
Charterhouse was there in 1863 at the start of the FA and in the 21st century has employed a truly professional footballer, David Howells, as their Director of Soccer, "Soccer" a term that must be used by Charterhouse boys, their parents and school staff because it was an Old Carthusian, Charles Wreford Brown, who first used the term "Soccer". Wreford Brown later sat on the FA Committee and played for his country in the days of the gentleman amateur.

Hugo was not a great footballer, although he ended up organising his boarding house teams, running bis own "disabled football match" and after taking his FA Level 1 Coaching Award, he went to university in the USA (George Washington), where he also took over organising a social team and now he has an ideal job as Player and Team Liaison Officer at Southampton FC, a job he loves.

In October 2016, Hugo "Came Out" on National Coming Out Day and having been given great support from his hardened professional colleagues at the Hampshire Club, Hugo has stated that his job "gets better and he couldn't be happier". It was a brave move.

Football is notorious for "gay bashing", ask the Brighton and Hove Albion fans, or any other gay footballer who has been put through the homophobic rinser; Justin Fashanu for example.

In 2013 former FA Executive Chris Gibbons came out and most recently so has the man who refereed a drab 0-0 drawn between Eastbourne Borough v Welling United in the National League South. Ryan Atkin was that referee and he created history by being the first arbiter who is openly gay as a professional football ref.

Eastbourne's match announcer warned the crowd about the racist and homophobic abuse from a previous home game and thankfully there were no such moments in the Welling match. Apart from the odd "Twitter Troll" Ryan has positive responses, although 72 countries still regard homosexuality as an illegal act and of course Donald Trump lurks! and the World Cup heads for Russia.

We hope that soccer will follow rugger's example.