Justin Fashanu

Infobox Football biography
playername = Justin Fashanu


fullname = Justinus Soni Fashanu
dateofbirth = birth date|1961|2|19|df=y
cityofbirth = Hackney, London
countryofbirth = England
dateofdeath = death date and age|1998|5|2|1961|2|19|df=y suicide
cityofdeath = Shoreditch, London
countryofdeath = England
height =
nickname =
currentclub =
position = Forward
youthyears =
youthclubs = Norwich City
years = 1978–1981
1980
1981–1982
1982
1982–1985
1985
1988
1989
1989
1989–1990
1990
1991
1991–1993
1993
1993
1993–1994
1995
1997
clubs = Norwich City
→Adelaide City (loan)
Nottingham Forest
→ Southampton (loan)
Notts County
Brighton & Hove Albion
Los Angeles Heat
Edmonton Brickmen
Manchester City
West Ham United
Leyton Orient
Toronto Blizzard
Torquay United
Airdrieonians
Trelleborg
Heart of Midlothian
Atlanta Ruckus
Miramar Rangers
caps(goals) = 90 (35)
32 0(3)
09 0(3)
64 (20)
16 0(2)
02 0(0)
02 0(0)
05 0(0)
41 (15)
16 0(5)
11 0(1)
18 (12)
nationalyears =
nationalteam =
nationalcaps(goals) =

Justinus Soni "Justin" Fashanu (19 February 1961 – 2 May 1998) was an English footballer, who played for a variety of clubs between 1978 and 1997. His 1981 transfer to Nottingham Forest made him Britain's first £1m black footballer. In 1990 Fashanu encountered hostility after becoming the first prominent footballer to identify himself publicly as gay. In 1998 he was questioned by American police when a 17-year-old accused him of sexual assault. The police dropped the allegation because of lack of evidence, but Fashanu committed suicide in May of that year, protesting that he had "already been presumed guilty".

Biography

Early life

Fashanu was the son of a Nigerian barrister living in England. When his parents split up he was sent, together with his younger brother John (who also became a professional footballer) to a Barnardo's home. When he was six, he and his brother were fostered by Alf and Betty Jackson and were brought up in Shropham near Attleborough, Norfolk. Justin excelled at boxing as a youth, and was rumoured at one time to be pursuing a professional boxing career instead of his footballing career.

Football career

Justin Fashanu began his career as an apprentice with Norwich City, turning professional towards the end of December 1978. He made his league debut on January 13 1979, against West Bromwich Albion, and settled into the Norwich side scoring regularly and occasionally spectacularly. In 1980 , he won the BBC Goal of the Season award, for a very spectacular goal against Liverpool. He subsequently became Britain's first £1m black footballer when he transferred to Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest in August 1981 as a replacement for the outgoing Trevor Francis.

His career stalled as his professional relationship with Brian Clough deteriorated; Clough, it would appear, was disturbed by the rumours of Justin Fashanu's visits to gay nightclubs and bars. His goals and then confidence dried up as he failed to fit in with the playing and lifestyle demands of Clough, especially after Clough had discovered his homosexuality and barred him from even training with the side.

In his autobiography, Clough recounts a dressing down he gave Fashanu after hearing rumours that he was going to gay bars. "'Where do you go if you want a loaf of bread?' I asked him. 'A baker's, I suppose.' 'Where do you go if you want a leg of lamb?' 'A butcher's.' 'So why do you keep going to that bloody poofs' club?"' [cite book
last =Clough
first =Brian
title =Clough: The Autobiography
publisher =Corgi Adult
year =1995
location =
pages =319 pages
id =ISBN 0552140031 ]

In August 1982 he was loaned to Southampton (scoring 3 goals in 9 appearances), and then in December that year was sold to local rivals Notts County for only £150,000. He scored 20 times in 64 games for the Magpies before moving to Brighton & Hove Albion in June 1985 for a fee of £115,000, where a knee injury looked to have finished his career. He went to the United States for surgery and began playing again, firstly with Los Angeles Heat and then to Canada with the Edmonton Brickmen. He returned to the UK and tried to resurrect his playing career, joining Manchester City on 23 October 1989, and played twice in the First Division, but on 20 November, barely a month after joining the club, he moved to West Ham United, later having a trial with Ipswich Town. He joined Leyton Orient in March 1990 and subsequently joined non-league Southall as player-coach before spending a summer with Toronto Blizzard. after leaving Toronto he returned to England to sign for semi-pro Leatherhead.

In 1990, he publicly came out as gay in an interview with the tabloid press, becoming the only prominent player in English football so far to do so. Many former colleagues spoke out in anger against him, stating that homosexuals had no place in a team sport, and his brother John publicly disowned him. Although he claimed that he was generally well accepted by his fellow players, he freely admitted that they would often joke maliciously about his sexual orientation, and he also became the target of constant crowd abuse because of it.

He began a trial with Newcastle United on 24 October 1991, but he never played a first-team game for the club and manager Ossie Ardiles refused to give him a permanent contract. He signed for Torquay United on 23 November 1991, apparently one of the few league clubs willing to give him a real chance. He hogged the limelight while at Plainmoor, with his lifestyle, in particular his relationship with Coronation Street actress Julie Goodyear spread over the tabloids, but he still managed to impress on the pitch and played 21 league games that season and scored 10 goals, but was unable to save Torquay from suffering relegation from the Third Division.

When Ivan Golac was appointed manager of Torquay in February 1992, Fashanu was given the role of assistant manager and maintained this position at the end of the season when Golac was replaced by new manager Paul Compton.

On 13 April 1992, Fashanu received a £265 fine and a 28-day driving ban after being found guilty of speeding and failing to produce his driver's licence.

In February 1993, with Torquay battling against a second successive relegation (from the new Division Three to the GM Vauxhall Conference, Fashanu applied for the vacant post of manager following Compton's departure, but was turned down in favour of Neil Warnock. Fashanu left to play for Airdrieonians soon after, but was unable to save them from suffering relegation from the Scottish Premier Division.

He had scored 15 goals in 41 games for the Gulls, a good record given that the 2 seasons he had been with the club had both involved relegation battles. He left Airdrie in 1993, playing in Sweden with Trelleborg, before returning to Scotland, joining Heart of Midlothian in July 1993, but had his contract terminated in February 1994 for 'unprofessional conduct' (he had attempted to sell false stories regarding him and a number of cabinet ministers to the press) and returned to the United States to coach a boys team in Georgia. He later moved to Australia to play for Adelaide City and then to New Zealand to play for Miramar Rangers F.C. in 1997, before joining Atlanta Ruckus in the spring of the same year, but was suspended for the playoffs for failure to comply with the terms of his contract. He then moved to Ellicott City, Maryland to coach the Maryland Mania, a new professional team in the second division USL A-League, following his officially announced retirement from the professional game.

Coming out in the press

Justin Fashanu agreed an exclusive with The Sun tabloid to come out as gay. They ran the headline as "£1m Football Star: I AM GAY" on 22 October 1990. [cite paper
author =The Sun
title =£1m Football Star: I AM GAY
version =
publisher =News Group Newspapers
date =22 October 1990 ] He claimed to have had an affair with a married Conservative MP who he first met in a London gay bar and "we ended up in bed together at his London flat". [cite paper|title=Soccer star in gay romp|publisher=Herald Sun|date=23 October 1990]

In response a week later, his brother John Fashanu agreed an exclusive with The Voice who ran the headline "John Fashanu: My Gay Brother is an outcast." [cite paper
author =The Voice (newspaper)
title =John Fashanu: My Gay Brother is an outcast
version =
publisher =GV Media Group
date =30 October 1990
url =
format =
accessdate = ]

Justin Fashanu was interviewed for the July edition of Gay Times in 1991 (appearing on the front cover), where the situation was summarised as: "The Sun dragged out the tale with titillating stories of sexual encounters with unnamed MPs, football players and pop stars, which, he claims, were largely untrue. The revelations, nevertheless, earned him a considerable sum of money but he says he was offered even more by others who wanted him to stay in the closet. He admits that he wasn't fully prepared for the backlash that followed and his career in football ... has suffered "heavy damage". Although he's fully fit, no club has offered him a full-time contract since the story first appeared." [cite journal
last =Marshall
first =John
title =Justin Fashanu: Soccer's enigmatic gay star
journal =Gay Times
issue =154
publisher =Millivres
month =July | year =1991
accessdate =2006-12-24 ]

The tabloid interest in Fashanu gathered pace when—in a characteristically unusual twist — he started dating former Coronation Street actress Julie Goodyear, who had also recently sold stories to the press of her own lesbian past; the relationship was shortlived.

Allegations and suicide

In 1998 in the United States, a 17-year-old claimed to police that on 25 March he found himself in Fashanu's bed, after a drinking bout, being sexually assaulted. Fashanu was questioned about this by the police on 3 April, but he was not held in custody. It was widely reported in the press that the police later arrived at his flat with a warrant to arrest him on charges of second-degree sexual assault, first-degree assault, and second-degree assault. However, Fashanu had already returned to England.

In the morning of 3 May 1998, he was found hanged in a deserted lock-up garage he had broken into, in Shoreditch, London, after visiting [http://www.gaysauna.co.uk Chariots Roman Spa] (a gay sauna in the area). In his suicide note, he stated: "I realised that I had already been presumed guilty. I do not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family"..."I hope the Jesus I love welcomes me, I will at last find peace." [cite journal
last =Powell
first =Vicky
title =Suicide note increases speculation over death of Justin Fashanu
journal =Gay Times
issue =237
publisher =Millivres
month =June | year =1998
accessdate =2006-12-24 ]

An inquest in London, held on 9 September 1998, heard that there was in fact no warrant out for Fashanu's arrest and that the American police had already dropped the investigation because of lack of evidence. The inquest record a verdict of suicide on 37-year-old Fashanu.

Fashanu was listed at number 99 in the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes in [http://www.pinkpaper.com/pinkpaper/about_us.asp The Pink Paper] , 26 September, 1997, issue 500, page 15.

A decade after his death, Justin Fashanu is still the only professional footballer in the world to disclose that he was gay. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/04/21/east_midlands_gay_footballers_s13_w9_feature.shtml BBC - Inside Out - East Midlands - Gay footballers ] ]

Footnotes

References

* cite news
last =Harris
first =Nick
title =Greedy clubs tell gay players to keep quiet about sexuality
publisher =Independent
date =13 April 2006
url =http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/news/article357363.ece
accessdate =2006-12-24
* cite news
title =From Fashanu to Amaechi: Homophobia in Sports
publisher =Culture of Soccer, WordPress
date =15 February 2007
url =http://cultureofsoccer.com/2007/02/15/from-fashanu-to-amaechi-homophobia-in-sports/
accessdate =2007-02-16
* cite news
last =James
first =David
title =Will a gay footballer ever come out of the comfort zone?
publisher =The Observer
date =15 April 2007
url =http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,2057697,00.html
accessdate =2007-04-15

External links

* [http://www.petertatchell.net/sport/justin%20fashanu.htm Peter Tatchell's account of Justin Fashanu's personal life and career]
* [http://briandeer.com/justin-fashanu.htm Investigation of Justin Fashanu's death by reporter Brian Deer]
* [http://www.ex-canaries.co.uk/players/fashanu.htm Career information at ex-canaries.co.uk]
* [http://www.gfsn.org.uk/a_fashanu.htm Profile in Attitude Magazine]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13211597 Photos]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn_liQG58vk video tribute]
* [http://londonhearts.com/scores/players/fashanujustin.html London Hearts profile]