My electronic record-keeping is pretty rudimentary, so I have no real idea when I started a fan page for Ian Roberts, but I have a clear recollection of why.

Contrary to popular assumption, it wasn’t a testament to my undying love for my “hero”, it wasn’t a way to attract his attention, it wasn’t a way to work out my sexual frustrations. Near as I can recall, it was kind of a joke.

It must have been late 1995 or early 1996, I’d just read yet another article on Ian’s coming out and so I indulged what was to become a lifelong habit, I searched the web for him. In 1996, the web was hardly huge and yet, even then, popular celebrities usually had at least one fan page devoted to them. I was stunned, given the amount of media attention given to Roberts, that no-one had yet created a fan page for him.

So, since I hoard magazines and therefore had a bunch of articles about him, I scanned some pics and a couple of articles and put up the first version of “The Unofficial Ian Roberts Tribute Page” for no other reason than that I just thought it ought to exist. The bulk of the amateur web was built this way: people had an idea and went and made a web page about it, something they love or had interest in expertise in. At the time, no-one thought about making money off it.

Anyway, I put it up, I more or less forgot about it, I got on with whatever I was doing. Then about six months later, I got an email (which one day I will dig up) from a guy in Malaysia. At the time, there was only one ISP in Malaysia and it was run by the government. Malaysia is a majority Islamic nation with a fairly conservative government. They view homosexuality fairly dimly…

This guy’s email thanks me profusely for putting such inspirational information up, since no such information is available in his home country. He claims that the government ISP even censors his email, so he can’t even use the “G” word. He says that Ian’s story has helped him feel better about himself…

So, about that point, I stopped thinking of the Ian page as a bit of a joke. I realised that although I was drowned in gay-positive media, the Web let me get such information to people who weren’t so lucky. I guess I was humbled. So, from then on, I grabbed every Ian article I could find. In attempt to be fair about copyright, I held onto the article until the publication had left the stands and then scanned the pics and text and started making the site more comprehensive.

I continued like this for a couple of years and gradually started to get bored with constantly updating the site, so the updates slowed to a trickle and stopped. Not long after, Ian retired from playing Rugby League and so the articles about him slowed down too.

So, that was just about it for the Ian Roberts page. I added little news spots every so often when I noticed some news about Ian and I updated the design a little but didn’t make any real additions until this year. I was cleaning up my office and found my stockpile of articles.

Since Ian seems to have shifted permanently from football to acting, now seemed like a good time to finish the thing off. So I’ve spent the last few weeks gradually scanning and OCRing all those articles to compile a fairly complete chronology of Ian’s period as Australia’s most famous gay sportsman.

Reading over five years of interviews with Ian in a short period of time was intriguing. One of the things I know from so many years of maintaining this site is that it’s important to distinguish between a celebrity’s public persona and the person himself. What’s remarkable in those five years of Ian interviews is the coherence and clarity of the public persona that emerges.

Roberts is clearly a man who is always certain of his path. It’s a path which changes through the years, but in interviews, his confidence in the correctness of whatever he is currently doing is complete. His attitude is flawlessly positive, never wavering.

He is also constantly in love, the partner changes at least once, but he always speaks as if stunned by the raw power of his own affection for his partner as though each time the feeling is a complete novelty. His past contained a period of unspecified (but low-key) promiscuity, but then he met his man and their blazing reciprocal regard seared all thoughts of other men from his mind (even Brad Pitt apparently).

It’s curious; when I started all this I was living in Brisbane far away from Ian, who lived initially in Sydney, then in Townsville, then again in Sydney. Ian was a rare sight where I lived. You heard stories, I even met someone he’d allegedly once pursued, but it was all stories from far away. Then two years ago I moved to Sydney, where Ian sightings are a weekly event. We’ve danced in the same tiny room, I’ve taken his photo, I even know several people who know him. Surely, people ask me, I must have been tempted to walk up, say hello, tell him who I am, shake the man’s hand?

Nope, not really. Partly, I don’t want to play adoring fan, “Gee Mr Roberts, I’m your biggest fan. I’ve been maintaining your unofficial website for the last 7 years!” Partly, I’m not sure I want to know the real guy. I’ve devoted so many years to media-Ian that I’m not certain if real-life-Ian is who I want to meet. Sydney fags being the gossips we are I still hear stories, from the kind of men Ian likes to what he likes to do in bed. I’ve no idea if any of it’s accurate and I don’t really care… but I guess I’m worried that if I meet the real guy, I might find out that media-Ian isn’t real, that he’s just a tactical fiction.

And my problem is, I think he’s a good tactical fiction. Men all over the world benefit from the story of this bold, brave, confident man, madly in love with his man, nonchalant about his sexuality, iron-hard on the football field, caring of his parents, who gives to the community and is, thrillingly, a big stud to boot (no pun intended). I’ve got no interest in charting if and where the real man deviates from the media image.

So now it’s done. There will undoubtedly be a lot more media interest in Ian after he graduates from NIDA next year as a trained actor. People tell me he’s pretty good in the stage plays he’s been in as a student, there’s no reason why he can’t expect a successful second career.

But what made Ian remarkable was primarily that he was the only Australian football player in any code that had been honest about his homosexuality. I kept the site going because as far as I could tell the world needed to know about this “Big, Gay, Out Footballer”, simply because they’re a rare breed. But gay actors? That’s a site for someone else to make, I think. As for me, my work here is done.

Citizens.

Tags: Formation, Queer