Let’s use this moment to put an end to toxic masculinity and finally let men, all men, feel comfortable with who they are

ONE lesser-mentioned sentence in the announcement made by Gala Fairydean Rovers on striker Zander Murray becoming the first senior, male footballer in Scotland to reveal he is gay carried a weight that hangs heavily on a society being asked to countenance the importance of change.

‘Murray hopes that, one day, players won’t feel the need to come out and make statements,’ it read, ‘and he hopes that men can be comfortable in being who they are.’

That we are close to a situation where footballers — or anyone else, for that matter — should no longer feel they have to be overtly public about their sexuality is clear. That the likes of Murray (pictured) or referees Craig Napier and Lloyd Wilson have still felt it necessary, though, should be accepted and understood as a valid reason why we are still a little while away from the ‘normalisation’ they wish to create.

It’s the bit about men being comfortable with who they are that resonates most, though. Because that transcends issues of who is gay or straight or otherwise. It feeds into all aspects of our lives and is a matter that Scottish society — and football, in particular — needs to address with some urgency.

In essence, it is about men, all men, being better to — and more understanding of — each other.

In many parts of the country, there remains a toxicity about elements of male culture. A hardwired machismo that refuses to fade despite changing habits, tastes and attitudes. A drive for everyone to carrying on following the crowd, literally and metaphorically. And football appears to remain one of its strongest bastions.

Watching it, playing it, talking about it, sitting on the same trains on a Saturday evening as those who go to it. You don’t have to look far to see its actions and its consequences.

Motherwell have been particularly vocal over a number of years on the need to zone in on what it is about the way we live that appears to make so many men — noticeably, younger men — feel so disenfranchised and uncomfortable with their real selves.

Their chief executive, Alan Burrows, has described male suicide as ‘a plague’ in his area of North Lanarkshire. At one stage, the club reported that around 25 of their own fans in a relatively short period had taken their own lives.

It was a frightening statistic that begged the question: Why? And what are we doing wrong here?

Many of us men, maybe even most of us, have grown up in this environment. Propagated it. Celebrated it. Seen the need to embrace it and live up to it almost as a kind of survival mechanism at times. A way to fit in.

We’ve measured our masculinity on how much we can drink. How well we can fight. How many birds we can pull. How successful we are. What our status is. Where we belong in the pecking order. Who is the Alpha. Who’s being ‘a gay’. Who hates Huns or Tims or any kind of ‘other’ most. Taking the weaknesses of those others and making capital from them.

All the while, neglecting real feelings and real conversations in favour of pints and gambling and madness and gazing at games on the telly until oblivion descends.

Or until we break. And have to work out how to glue ourselves back together, seeing those incapable of doing so go the way of those 25 at Motherwell and just accepting it as a byproduct of the nihilistic monster we’ve willingly fed.

Yet, we surely know it is outdated for our gender to measure ourselves in such terms. We stand in playgrounds collecting our children. We know how to glaze fruit cakes and make a roux. We share the housework with our other halves. Many of us are no longer chief breadwinner in our families. We are familiar with civil partnerships and same-sex weddings.

When all of that has changed so remarkably in this modern world of deindustrialised communities, gig economies and sexual politics now enshrined in law, why do these attitudes and practices from the distant eras of our forefathers remain so ingrained?

Even Wilson admitted in his June confessional with the Back Onside mental health charity, in which he opened up on his homosexuality, that he had always been part of the ‘banter’ — a ghastly term now more about dressing up horrendous behaviour towards each other as some form of humour — in football dressing rooms and on ‘lads’ holidays’. Putting himself into positions he didn’t want to be in just to divert the spotlight off him onto someone else. For protection.

Wilson’s interview was a brilliant, moving thing. Eloquent, educational, selfreflective, honest about his own failings and aberrations.

He told us that it is OK to forgive yourself and others for past behaviours. For attitudes that you now feel ashamed of. And to forgive others too. For it is the only way to move forward.

One fine example of that came from Jake Daniels at Blackpool, who became the first player in English senior football, at the age of 17, to come out in May. Historic social-media messages, which could be construed as anti-gay, posted by team-mate Marvin Ekpiteta came to light.

Ekpiteta apologised.

Admitted his shame. Showing maturity beyond his years, Daniels assured him: ‘What you said ten years ago at 17-years-old doesn’t define the man you are today. I am proud to be your team-mate.’

Men all understand the often brutal culture that makes us do and say things we regret. Largely because we’ve all been there. We possess the knowledge and understanding to forgive and help each other change. It’s what still needs to be done to harness that, do it more often and alter wider collective attitudes that is most pressing. In football, for example, there seems to be no great opposition to women being gay. Leanne Dempster, for example, is at her third club as chief executive and nobody says a dicky bird about her personal life. As it should be. Although it has been encouraging to attend men’s games in which Wilson and Napier have been officiating and hear nothing directed towards them either, the fact they still feel it incumbent upon them to be flagbearers for their community should tell us that this is entirely about how males relate to other males.

For those of us with our own children — our own boys — it should make us think too. It was sad to read Murray’s words on how the freedom of going on holiday to a Pride event made him realise the prison he existed within at home. Awful to hear Wilson talk of the ‘horrific journey’ of spending 17 years of his life living a lie.

The thought that you might play some part in making your own kids live that way is almost too much to bear. That they might put themselves at risk because of your old, prehistoric prejudices.

Yet, we need to be conscious of so many other messages passing blithely down the generations too. Senior football does seem to be accepting and working on this. My lads attend training sessions run by a particular club. The ex-pro who takes them is terrific with the kids, boys and girls together. It is about pure fun. They love it.

Yet, my wife took them to a different, non club-affiliated event earlier in the summer and left horrified by an angry father screaming at six-year-olds from the sidelines, making football something synonymous with aggression, testosterone and overpowering others.

Between themselves, in the language of the playground, they talk about people and things ‘being gay’ in a most derogatory way. They are clear on which pastimes are for boys and which are for girls. Clear that life, in general, should be split in terms of gender and defined by being top dog.

Without being too po-faced about it, the importance of trying to prevent that taking root lies in front of our faces in these suicide figures, the proliferation of organisations such as FC United and Back Onside and the seemingly increasing cries for support and understanding from all corners of society.

These are the building blocks that create the culture of men feeling they shouldn’t admit to interests in cake-making or the joy of a flowering hydrangea or drinking delicate teas from china cups on a Tuesday afternoon while discussing what is on their minds.

They create the culture that locks in those young boys on the fringes of the group coming back from the game on the train — slugging their bottle of Mad Dog, wearing their designer brands, for sure, but easily identified as individuals who would rather just sit quietly and catch up on the football results rather than chanting to shoppers about dead fans of other clubs.

Wilson’s last words in that touchstone interview on his particular struggle crackled with meaning. ‘People are killing themselves because they can’t be them,’ he said.

It is painfully true. And it seems to apply, particularly, to men dealing with all manner of issues our society still makes it difficult for them to address. That’s why it’s down to us guys to set examples to the generations coming next and try harder to help it stop. All of it.