Lace 'em up
This weekend, Stonewall and PaddyPower joined forces to campaign against homophobia in football. "Right behind Gay Footballers" (#RBGF on Twitter) involved sending rainbow boot laces to every professional club in the UK, asking the players to wear them in their boots this weekend to show their support. There are approximately 5,000 professional footballers in England, Scotland and Wales...but none of them are openly gay. PaddyPower, being a bookmakers, have done the odds: apparently, the chances on there being no gay person in a random sample of 5000, assuming a 6% likelihood, is 1 in 2.29 x 10^134 -that is over a quadragintillion, if you can get your chops around that one.
Anyway, we're halfway through the weekend, and so far it has been a success with plenty of footballers and sports personalities showing -and tweeting- their support. There was some initial bullshit from some clubs about technical issues not allowing the change in laces, but they were shot down pretty quickly (see attached). From a personal point of view, I was chuffed to see Newcastle players stepping up. Our manager even donned a pair, all suited and booted :D
Anyway, we're halfway through the weekend, and so far it has been a success with plenty of footballers and sports personalities showing -and tweeting- their support. There was some initial bullshit from some clubs about technical issues not allowing the change in laces, but they were shot down pretty quickly (see attached). From a personal point of view, I was chuffed to see Newcastle players stepping up. Our manager even donned a pair, all suited and booted :D