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by Stephen Dunne (Campaign #256, July 1997)
... All the talk after the match centred around that kid Roberts. The 6ft 6in giant... played himself to a standstill and topped South's tackle count with 42 bone-crunching hits . .. (Mirror, 16/3/86)
Eleven years on: Roberts is a huge man, with enormous hands that clench, unclench and gesture efficiently. His face — instantly recognisable — is in good shape, apart from a recent swollen lip. He's limping slightly — "me knee mate" — but under the checked shirt and black jeans is a shit-load of raw physical power.He speaks softly, giving some people the impression that he's shy. A better word perhaps would be wary — of outsiders and of the media. He's got good reasons for both. In the two years since he became the first professional Australian sportsman to come out while still playing, the reactions have varied from adulation to mean-spirited bitching to outright hatred.
Yet underneath the caution, Roberts is gregarious. He's extremely articulate with his softly-spoken voice. He's got a sharp, laconic wit, using his face and hands to indicate shock, or amazement or good old-fashioned 'what the fuck?'
When he smiles, he's magic.
This interview was originally scheduled for the Bayswater Brasserie, one of Sydney's top 'Mod Oz' eateries. That morning, the publicist for Random House (publisher of Paul Freeman's biography, Ian Roberts: Finding Out) rang to change the venue: "Ian doesn't like wanky restaurants."
Hence, we're at Bill and Toni's in the heart of Sydney's Little Italy. It's an excellent, bustling and no-nonsense pasta place. During the interview, Roberts demolishes the house special, a 'half and half'—a schnitzel and a pile of pasta on the one plate. He seems to know a big chunk of the crowd, and invites the head waiter, obviously an old mate, to come and visit him in Townsville, anytime.
Afterwards, sitting at a streetside table having coffee, it's enormous fun to watch people watch Roberts. Across the street, cool inner-city queens do double takes ("It's him... Look Bradley, it's Ian Roberts!") and then act so cool, trying to stare without looking like they're staring. Roberts, catching up with old friends who just happen to be at the next table, doesn't notice. You can't help thinking that if he did, he couldn't care less.
Roberts leans back across the table.
"Look mate, I'm a footballer," he says emphatically. What he's too modest to say is "I'm a bloody good footballer."
When Roberts burst into the public arena in 1986, it was as the hugely talented South Sydney junior who topped tackle counts the moment he hit first grade. He was the giant lad with superb skills, an ability to unload the ball anywhere and the physical force needed to stop the flying big men in their tracks. He was talked about as the most talented junior South Sydney, the most tribal of rugby league clubs, ever produced.
He's been playing league ever since.
"This is my 13th season. Fucking oath it's a long time," he says.
In the biography, Roberts' football career is entangled with — a catalogue of injuries, first a troublesome groin and then the wonky knee. I ask him which is worse:
"Groin is more fun [he laughs]. Apart from a couple of major injuries in my knee and my groin, I've been pretty lucky otherwise, but when I've had a major injury it's been an incredibly major injury. Every player who's played as long as I have gets a couple of major injuries in their career."
I suggest that after 13 years, it would be fair to say that his time might be almost up.
"It would be fair to say that, yes. My body won't be capable of it. There's a use by date for everyone and I'm close to mine ... A couple more years."
He's been around in his football career, first with Souths, then 'silvertails' Manly and now with the Super League team the North Queensland Cowboys. The highlight?
"Winning a grand final would be the best but I haven't done that. Everyone wants to be considered the elite in whatever profession you're in, and playing for Australia is that level, so that probably holds the most prestige."
Roberts has taken over the Cowboys, necessitating a move to Townsville, a place he's clearly in love with. But it's becoming a team captain, this late in his career, that is the real honour:
"In league, it's a big rap, being asked to be the captain, in any team, and it's refreshing for me to know that my sexuality wasn't an issue at all."
He says his team — mostly a lot younger and less experienced — has been a joy to lead.
"Well, if someone's had a problem with me they certainly haven't shown it. I've had no bad responses, no ill feeling with anyone, no negative interaction with anyone. Everyone up here's been really, really cool. They've all been great with my partner and amazing. What more could you ask of people? "
Yet people whinge and snipe — the myth of the professional footballer in the sports car, being paid huge amounts of money to toss a ball around once a week. Roberts knows that's a ridiculous image, given the endless training, the injuries, the concussion and blackouts — the sheer physical impact of the game. He takes a long-term view.
"I feel I've deserved everything I've got out of football. I've worked fucking hard. People can tell me what they want, but everything I've got out of football I've had to work for, but no more than anyone else who has succeeded in any profession they've chosen. I probably celebrate my football now more than I ever have because there's nothing overshadowing it any more. I really enjoy it."
Of course, it's very hard these days to separate Ian Roberts footballer and Ian Roberts gay man. By coming out when he did, Roberts has become something of a trailblazer in this country. Yet the incessant media attention can get wearying."It's hard for me to talk about it all the time, because I'm so blase. It's not really a story to me, it's just a progression of a whole load of situations and circumstances that are happening in my life and it took me an incredible amount of emotional and financial loss to realise that [my sexuality] is not a problem compared to those problems.
"It's like people interview me and say it must have been incredibly hard and courageous, but it just wasn't. It's hard when anyone comes out. I suppose it's harder for someone with a profile because you can't ever disappear back into the crowd.
"You become a target for bigots and fuckwits but there's nothing I can do about that and there's nothing I can say to people to reassure them that it's not going to happen to them, because unfortunately it fucking is."
Roberts has had bricks through his windows and his house spray-painted — "It's fucking horrible mate, he recalls. But there's an upside, the letters of support from thousands of people, young and old, gay and straight.
"I've had some incredibly emotional letters. I've been moved to tears, and I mean that one hundred percent. I didn't realise how important this trip was, except for the last month.
"I'm not saying it because I want other people to pat me on the back. I didn't do this for publicity or profile, I did it initially for my mum and dad. It got to the point where it was just to let my mum and dad know that I was happy, that was basically the reason. I love my family to death, my mother and my father, and I love my boyfriend, and I'd never do anything to hurt them, and I also know they would never do anything to hurt me. And that's what it was about.
"But now because there are so many kids out there suffering, they should realise they don't have to go through what they are going through. It's just not fucking fair, and the more you hide it and the more dishonest you are the more self respect you lose.
"I realise now how important this book has been and I realise how important—forget it's me—how important it is for someone to have come out and how important it must have been to other younger guys. I feel really privileged to have been able to do it, all those bad things that had happened to me previously have all amounted to this. Most people never get into a situation where they can help so many people at one time. I may really have helped someone, built their self-esteem up or helped them believe that there's light at the end of the tunnel.
"Honestly, I feel really flattered that I've been able to do it. My mum is incredibly proud now of me because she was forever on to me about being
a role model for kids and now I'm a role model for
a lot of kids. She obviously never had gay kids in mind."This isn't just for gay kids you know. It's for straight people to realise that being gay is not a problem, and they shouldn't be threatened or concerned because one of their friends is or that maybe he or she is."
This touches on another aspect of Ian Roberts, the one where he's a hero to the gay community. It hasn't been a comfortable relationship. Roberts says his decision to come out was personal. While it may have had ancillary benefits for other gays and lesbians, he never intended to become some sort of spokesperson.
"It was never a cause for me, never a gay cause. The gay community mightn't be happy to hear that but it wasn't. I just wanted to be able to walk in the street holding my partner's hand if I wanted to. I wanted to live with him and not have to hide the fact that I was living with him. I just wanted to be normal and have a smile on my face. I didn't want to have to scurry around here and there.
"I just got fucking sick and tired being something I wasn't and I couldn't even go to dance parties, gay dance parties and hug my boyfriend, because of what people would say. Fuck that."
The problems of being an instant gay icon include both the expectations of the community and his treatment in the gay media. Roberts insists he's now completely relaxed about the whole thing.
"I'm not dirty on anyone, he says.
Really?
"You kind of get over it. It's like everyone's entitled to their opinion I suppose. You just have to cop that. Unfortunately when people's opinions clash heavily with what I'm trying to do, I get a bit upset that they've missed the boat, like it's how did you get that out of that. But if there's one thing that football has done for me prior to coming out, is it conditions you for the media."
While he's calmed down now, some of the flak Roberts copped from the nastier elements of the community in the past — allegations that he was only coming out for money; that he was an opportunist, and previously that he was a closet, did sting. (I should confess my part in this — Roberts was one of the names I mentioned at a Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby forum as a closet homosexual a few years back. Check pages 248-252 of the book for details.)
The curious attack by Sydney Star Observer columnist Steve McLeod was particularly harsh. A sample: "The growing iconisation of Roberts as a Good Weekend Greek god too big to ever get bashed up and too much of a footballer to ever get frocked up .. . This game would make me a man? Fuck off. It's only made Roberts money." While Roberts doesn't want to talk about McLeod, apart from observing "Some people have no scruples", he's happy to speak generally:
"What do they expect? I did the wrong thing before, where I was at some stages doing too much, not doing enough, I was saying too much, I wasn't saying enough.
"It was never a gay cause to me but I did not want people to think that I was trying to avoid the issue, or dodge it. I play football. That's what I do. I didn't mean to be a spokesman for anyone. I think sometimes [the community] expect me to be something different but everyone has got a preconceived expectation. I think now that people just expect me to be me and play football.
"Unfortunately there are a lot of bitter queens out there for some reason, but there are a lot of bitter people as well. It's just a human trait. I don't know if they expect too much from me. I can't deliver what people are expecting, because it's not in my make up. I'm gay and I play football and I've been open and I've been honest about it.
"I think I'm halfway decent. I've been through more than most people my age, a lot more, and I'm not saying that because I want a pat on the back or I want someone to say 'oh jeez you've had a hard life' because I don't see it like that. Directly or indirectly, I was responsible for everything that's happened to me, both positive and the sad aspects of my life.
"It's no use whingeing about it because no one gives a fuck anyway. It's what you're doing about it now, and if you can't take anything out of those things and come away with something positive then they have gotten to you, they have beaten you. If all those things hadn't happened to me I wouldn't be where I am now. This old bloke wrote me a card, it was amazing, it was from an 86 year old gay man, and he finished the card saying 'a life lived in fear is a life half lived'. Those few words make so much sense to me."
In the book, Roberts points out the obvious — he's not the first gay man to play rugby League. I wondered — not fishing for names — if other first grade footballers were privately out to Roberts. He was pleasant but firm:"I won't answer that. Everyone deals with it the best way they know how, and I'm not going to make anyone feel uncomfortable talking to me in the future. I can't see a mass flood of guys declaring their sexuality because of this."
Change of subject. Both rugby league and AFL have recently hit the headlines over allegations of verbal abuse, often racial, on the football field. It's known in the trade as 'sledging'. Roberts sees such abuse as part of the game:"In that situation the guys who call you things are going to find anything. If you're overweight, you're a fat bastard, if you're black, you're gonna be a black bastard, if you're a poof you're gonna be a faggot. Most of the guys who say all that say it without even realising what they're saying. It's like they're just trying the get the better of you. I don't condone it, but I don't accept that as pure hatred like I've seen prejudice displayed otherwise."
Roberts was also an early convert to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch's Super League, the breakaway rugby league competition that promised a huge dose of razzle-dazzle and international exposure (as well as providing hours of cheap television for the Murdochs' cable empire). The rebel competition became a highly emotive issue among league fans, as it would destroy the traditional geographical identity of the Sydney clubs. At the time of writing, the ARL and Super League are in negotiations over a possible truce. Roberts has stuck with Super League. I asked him why:
"Obviously, initially it was financial. For anyone to say otherwise is bullshit. Also the incentives that they gave each player and the way we are treated while we are playing, it's superior to anything we ever got in the ARL.
"I had a look at [Murdoch's] past history with other sporting bodies—English soccer, American football, basketball, ice hockey. Everything he's touched has turned into a gold mine and has become more successful because of his involvement. I didn't think he was gambling with rugby league, I just thought he was doing what he knew was a sure thing, and the game was only going to grow and prosper.
"It's a long term thing, and people can say yeah, look at the debacle you're in now, but it's still a long term thing."
It's a long term thing for Roberts too. He mentions an off-the-field career with Super League as a possibility once he stops playing. But Roberts says he hasn't really given it much thought.
"It's hard, you know? When you're putting so much time and effort into what you're doing at the moment, you don't really have time to project into the future or to plan career-wise, because what you're doing at the moment is so time consuming. Hopefully I won't have to do too much. I don't know where things will lead me, I have no idea."
He seems to be a man very happy in the here and now. He's out, and quietly proud. The book's published, the media storm will soon die down, and Ian Roberts will be back doing what he loves — playing football on verdant fields and living in a new town he loves with a man he also loves.
"Townsville? Mate... it's good. I really like it. I love it up there, it's the best thing that's happened to my partner and I, the best thing for us."
Any regrets?
"Everyone's got regrets. New Weekly... Nah, because that was just another learning curve as well. I trusted some people who fucked me over basically. But that's happened a lot in my life ... yeah, everyone's got regrets.
"But you know, I wouldn't want to be fucking straight. After everything I've been through now, people can say it's environmental, I think it's genetic, whatever, I'm not looking for answers.
"If there was some sort of chemical treatment, electron fucking whatever, I wouldn't want it. Because I wouldn't want to lose what I've got now. I mean that. I hope other people are as happy as me. It's taken me so much to get here, I'm more conscious now of my love for my family and my boyfriend than anything in the world. And that's because I'm gay, no other reason."
There's a trope running through Ian Roberts: Finding Out, the idea that you only get one chance at life. After some rough trots, Ian Roberts seems to have found a comfortable place in the sun. If this is his life, and he's only got one go at it, then so far, so good.
"If I did it again, I wouldn't be where I am. I keep saying, I keep coming back to my boyfriend, I wouldn't be with him, or I mightn't be with him. I would gladly do it all over again to make sure I was with him."
BIO: AS A KID, STEPHEN DUNNE WOULD LIE, CHEAT AND PRETEND TO BE ILL TO GET OUT OF PLAYING FOOTBALL.
See also Damian Millar's review of Ian Roberts: Finding Out from the same issue of Campaign.
