Whitehawk FC: Football Embracing Diversity

myGwork's Director of Customer Success, David Hayes, shares his experience of attending a local football match

The perceived masculine and often aggressive attitude of the average British football fan and the macho behaviour with which they occupy their domain, is not what I would consider a warm and welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ people like myself. In fact, it is well documented that LGBTQ+ fans of football are less likely to attend football as a result of it.

The Whitehawk Ultras are regulars at Brighton Pride

Hopefully, in time, this will change, and I think it could happen in 3 ways:

1. As younger fans with more progressive attitudes subscribe to football fandom, with them will come a more inclusive attitude, they’re more likely to have friends within the community and have grown up in a more diverse culture than the older generations

2. More LGBTQ+ footballers will hopefully feel comfortable enough to come out. Jake Daniels inspiringly became the UK’s first active male professional footballer to come out as gay, in May of this year to a supportive club and teammates. Perhaps the more players that come out the more that fans attitudes will change.

3. Clubs like Whitehawk FC (and specifically their fans) will trailblaze an example for other clubs and other fans.

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a league game of Whitehawk FC at their home ground, "The Enclosed Ground", which nestles at the back of East Brighton Park, adjacent to a caravan park. The area of Whitehawk itself, part of the City of Brighton & Hove, carries something of a reputation with some, and at times in the past, it has statistically been in the top 5% of deprived areas in England. Looking around, however, you see a mixture of locals and some from further afield, coming together under a banner of inclusiveness in sport. The challengers were Burgess Hill town, who were accompanied by a similarly vocal yet smaller bunch of enthusiastic supporters. The game ended up a 0-0 draw, but of course, the football is only part of the experience.

The fans of Whitehawk dedicatedly huddle at whichever end of the pitch their team are shooting towards, swapping ends at half-time. Their ethos is “Pro-Queer, Pro-Party, Pro-nouns”. Approaching the stand, you’ll see they’re flanked by a big banner that states, “Love Always Wins – Whitehawk, not so much”.

The volume of football chants (respectful and without bad language) was impressive, I didn’t realise how many songs could have “Whitehawk” or “Hawk” jammed into them. My favourite was, I think, an original ditty that went “Homophobia, we say NO, racism, we say NO, sexism, we say NO, drinking, we say YES”.

Their resolute positivity, enthusiasm, energy, and championing of their team was infectious. Surprisingly and unexpectedly, I didn’t feel at all out of place. What could have been intimidating was instead boisterous and inclusive. We had a lot of fun, and I learned that to be a true football fan, you don’t need to know all the rules, and you don’t need to support a team that’s always winning trophies - you just need to be a decent person whose team will want to win for.

With the World Cup in Qatar just around the corner, and questions being raised about the ethicality of not just gay rights, but human rights, workers' safety and underhand business dealings in the country, Whitehawk is a shining light in a part of our culture that I’ve always felt despondent about. Could the overall inclusion of minorities into the football realm vastly improve for us in the next couple of years? Unlikely. But if fans of football took some inspiration from the unconditional devotion of the Whitehawk “Ultras” to both their team and their inclusive principles – football would truly become a sport for ALL.

You can learn more about Whitehawk FC here. See you at a game soon!