NATHAN GRAHAM
Coronation Street star Nathan Graham opens up about playing a closeted gay footballer in the show — and how the beautiful game’s bosses should be tackling homophobic and racist abuse
Shoots and scores as a closeted footballer changing the game in Coronation Street
EastEnders in 2001. That was probably the last time I sat down to watch a soap, and I remember it well — Kat Slater storming across Albert Square after ‘ sister’ Zoe to declare that she is, in fact, * gasp* her mum. It was a moment of mascarastained magic and the classic line “You ain’t my muvva!” will forever be immortalized in the vaults of television heaven.
Finding myself in a scroll hole on the different streaming services, I recently circled back to terrestrial TV and purchased a oneway ticket to “sudsville” for a story reaching its crescendo on the famous cobbles of ITV’s Coronation Street — that of closeted gay footballer James Bailey, played by up- andcomer Nathan Graham.
Although by no means a footie fan ( unless you count the years of unconvincingly pretending to be one at school so as not to blow my threadbare heterosexual cover), there is no denying the potential power of a plot line tackling the subject of entrenched homophobia in the not- so- beautiful, on occasions, downright ugly game.
At present, there is no professional player in the UK who is openly gay. Justin Fashanu was the first — and last — person to come out in 1990, and after being battered by a relentless wave of homophobic and racist abuse, he tragically took his own life eight years later, at the age of 37.
The Bailey family moved onto the street last summer and Corrie’s scriptwriters have taken their time with James’s story to make sure it is handled with care and sensitivity. Over the past few months, we’ve seen James – who plays for the fictional side Weatherfield County – bear his soul to his nearest and dearest, including a run- in with his dad, Ed ( Trevor Michael Georges).
Now, the character faces the prospect of being forced from the closet publicly when messages sent to an ex- boyfriend leak online and a news reporter comes sniffing around: does he continue to try to live a lie, or speak his truth and deal with the consequences?
With no existing template to follow, the show’s writers imagine what it would be like, three decades on from Fashanu’s death, for a pro footballer to come out.
And so, at an ungodly hour at London’s Euston train station, cradling a truly dismal, taste bud- obliterating cup of coffee from the only outlet open, I depart for Manchester to talk to Nathan about how Coronation Street is trying to shift the goalposts of the national conversation around sexuality within sport.
With a beaming grin
on his face, Nathan takes Attitude on a tour of the set. Even if you’re not an avid viewer, it is a bit of a kick to be casually strolling past the Rover’s Return.
I’m surprised to hear that the rising star has yet to pull a pint at, arguably, the nation’s favourite pub; I figured it would be some sort of initiation. “I haven’t, no, but the next time I’m in the Rover’s, I’ll pull one and dedicate it to you,” he vows. Cheers to that.
After breaking out on the West End in musicals such as Loserville, Thriller Live and Dreamgirls, Nathan decided to focus on making it on the small screen, and his efforts paid off when he landed the part of James.
“To be watching Corrie and seeing Roy’s Rolls, the Rover’s, the actual street, then to be on the other side, it’s surreal,” he exclaims. “You know, meeting Bill – or William Roach [ aka Ken Barlow] – the guy is the OG, innit!”
Success tasted that much sweeter when Nathan’s nan, his loudest cheerleader, had the chance to see him make his debut before she passed away last year. “She was one of my biggest supporters and she knew that I wanted to do TV. Once she saw me [ on
Coronation Street] she was made up,” he says with a smile.
Nathan, who lives with his family in Leeds, knew “from the jump” that he was going to be sinking his teeth into a meaty narrative likely to cause ripples outside of the soap bubble. “There was an announcement in the press that we were doing this [ story] and my friends were like, ‘ Yo, this could be big,’” he says. “But I’ve always said [ to myself] from day one, just try to focus on the work, if you think too far in advance, you end up running before you can walk.”
Having grown up in the inclusive world of theatre, where the queer community is as omnipresent as jazz hands, Nathan found it strange trying to get into the head space of somebody whose sexual orientation isn’t welcome in the workplace; in this instance, the football pitch.
“I have tons of [ gay] friends,” he begins. “Because of the industry I’m in, it’s just not a thing, sexuality isn’t an issue.”
This is the first gay character that the 29- year- old actor has played, and he approached it like he would any other. “Every role has a set of different circumstances and James’s is that he’s gay – that’s it,” he shrugs. “He plays football and he is a ‘ lad’, but he just so happens to like boys.”
Did he venture out into Canal Street, Manchester’s gay quarter, for research purposes? I ask, tongue lodged firmly in cheek. “I’ve been to G- A- Y in London, and Fibre in Leeds many times,” he laughs. “It’s just a place to go, innit!”
Nathan adds that he feels a certain responsibility in holding up a mirror to the experiences of a LGBTQ person. “It makes you feel like, whoa, I’m in a privileged position, someone has trusted me with this,” he explains. “James is representing a community, so I have to be truthful to that and own that struggle.”
Comparisons to Fashanu,
who was inducted into the National Football Museum’s Hall of Fame in February, were always going to be drawn, given that James is not only a gay footballer, but a gay black footballer.
“I knew of Justin,” Nathan reflects. “I watched a documentary about him ages ago and it makes you think of what it was like 30 years ago, that time period of someone being out and openly gay. He had it tough and he was super brave. The discrimination then
was a different level and I would like to think we’ve evolved as human beings.”
With no ‘ out’ footballers to turn to for advice, Nathan met with Keegan Hirst, 32, the first openly gay rugby league player.
The 6ft 4 Yorkshireman had a wife and two children when he made the announcement in 2015, and shortly afterwards he graced the front cover of Attitude.
“Keegan told his friends and family and he said each step got easier because the people he cared about and could actually affect his life [ supported him]. He said that if it was a fan shouting something at him, he’d think, well, you can’t really affect me, your opinion doesn’t matter,” Nathan recalls.
“He said one of his teammates started crying, ‘ I’m so sorry you had to go through this by yourself.’ There is this [ macho] thing of, ‘ We’re rugby men,’ or, ‘ We’re footballers,’ but it doesn’t need be like that. Being gay doesn’t take away from your talent, it doesn’t make you any less of an athlete than a straight guy.”
Our conversation moves on to the seismic gulf between how rugby officials stamp out discrimination in the game, and their football counterparts.
“Keegan singled out an incident in a game – I can’t remember between which teams – where some of the fans were being homophobic, and the board [ the Rugby Football League] came down on the club and fined them, they might even have deducted points,” Nathan continues. “I can’t speak for Keegan, but from listening to him, it seems like there was a safe environment for him.”
A keen Manchester United supporter, Nathan is more than aware of the hate speech that is spewed from the stands. “Ever since I got the job, it feels like there have been more cases of that,” he sighs. “There was the incident with Raheem Sterling [ in July, a Chelsea fan was banned for life for being racist], and then there was the stuff with Tammy Abraham and Paul Pogba, who received racial abuse on social media after missing penalties in their games.
“I also read the other week that someone heard homophobic chanting, but that the
FA [ Football Association] weren’t going to investigate,” he says.
Pointing to the “hooligan, hostile cloud” hanging over football, Nathan calls on bosses to pull their socks up when it comes to promoting inclusivity and giving bigotry the boot once and for all.
“I know [ the FA] do Stonewall’s Rainbow Laces and the Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football campaign, but [ it’s like] Gary Neville was saying, we have these campaigns, we put the t- shirt on, but what is actually happening beyond that...? It goes back to, you know, the way the government is now, if the people in government are saying X, Y and Z, then [ the fans] think it’s OK for them to say that.
“It feels like there are no consequences. You can say whatever you want. If you get found out, you might get a lifetime ban, yeah, but that’s just one fan. How many times can a club say they’ve had, say five cases [ of abuse]? Where do you draw the line? Things need to be put in place: if someone from your club, a fan or whatever, does this again, you’re going to be deducted points, you’re going to be fined, you might have to play a game behind closed doors. It needs to be zero tolerance,” he maintains.
of filming, an anonymous Twitter user claiming to be a Championship footballer intending to come out sent shockwaves through the media.
The mystery tweeter, known only as @ FootballerGay, teased he would unveil his identity by the end of
July last year, only to delete the account – which had amassed 50,000- plus followers and support from public figures like Gary Lineker – the day before the big reveal. “I thought I was stronger. I was wrong,” they wrote.
Cynics smelled a stunt, but Nathan hoped it was going to be an example of life imitating art. “For us, it was exciting, this might be our
‘ in’, someone we’ll actually be able to talk to,” he reminisces. “We were like, we’ll all follow him and then when he comes out, we’ll message him, ‘ Do you want to come in for a chat?’ The timing of it was mad, but then it obviously just disappeared.
“It’s like someone just did it to pull a stunt and it’s not something to take for a joke. A lot of people were behind it as well, it was positive,” he adds.
Speaking of positivity, Nathan has avoided being nipped by that viper’s nest otherwise known as social media – mostly, anyway.
“I don’t generally go looking online, you know searching # CorrieJames on Twitter; it can open a can of worms. I have seen things like, ‘ This storyline isn’t needed,’ or, ‘ Him being gay isn’t an issue in 2020,’ but unfortunately it is a thing, because otherwise we wouldn’t do stories like this, or there would be openly gay footballers out there.
“However, the other day, someone reached out to say that their dad is like Ed, and he said he understands and that he has that same struggle. It’s about representation, seeing yourself being represented, and if you’re seeing something that resonates with you, that’s the most important thing,” he stresses.
What the future holds for alter- ego James is under lock and key in the writers’ room, but Nathan shoots with his own ideas. “He comes out publicly, expecting the worst, but it’s more like, ‘ Huh,’ not a celebration, but not as big a thing as he thought it would be. Maybe he’s the catalyst and then another player is like, ‘ Me, too,’ more of that kind of journey,” he concludes, with a flash of that infectious, pearly- white grin.
Somebody give this man a toothpaste endorsement deal, already.
for anyone planning on heading to Manchester any time soon. If you happen to be travelling in a taxi with a footie- mad driver, and pass the Sir Alex Ferguson stand at Old Trafford, don’t innocently enquire if the former Man U manager Fergie is dead. The awkward, frostbitten silence that follows really isn’t worth it…