Justin Fashanu was a rugged English striker and the first black soccer player to be traded for a million pounds. He was also openly gay.

Justin Fashanu was a rugged English striker and the first black soccer player to be traded for a million pounds. He was also openly gay.



On the morning of May 3, 1998, Justin Fashanu was found dead. He had hung himself in a disused garage lock in Shoreditch, East London, about a mile away from where he had been born in Hackney, 37 years prior. He had spent the hour before his death at the Chariots Roman Spa, a local gay sauna. His last words, in a suicide note, were “I hope the Jesus I love welcomes me home.”

And so ended the life of the first openly gay professional soccer player.

When Michael Sam made his recent courageous announcement, there was a sense of him standing on the shoulders of giants, retired gay US sports stars like Billy Bean, Wade Davis, and Dave Kopay. Justin Fashanu had no such mentors. Sam’s coming out was (largely) met with sympathy in the media. His was a highly choreographed and meticulous outing with agents, publicists and America’s premier print publications and broadcasters all onside. As he told the sympathetic New York Times, “I just wanted to own my own truth.” When Justin Fashanu came out in 1990, in a bigoted and bruising England that was staggering through the end of a decade of rule by Margaret Thatcher, Fashanu had no such allies in public relations or the English media. When threatened with an outing, Justin accepted a tabloid newspaper’s meager payoff and gave them all the tawdry gossip they wanted to hear. The truth did not matter. Justin was the first canary in the coalmine, the first to come out of the closet in a toxic era. He was never going to own his own truth.

Justin Fashanu was born in inner-city London, the son of a Nigerian barrister and Guyanese nurse. An absconding father and a mother unable to make ends meet led to Justin and his younger brother, John, being sent to Barnardo’s, a charitable British institution that prepares children for fostering and adoption. Justin was six years old when empty nesters Alf and Betty Jackson of Attleborough, in the pastoral county of Norfolk, about 120 miles northeast of London, agreed to foster the Fashanu brothers.

Justin had been a promising teenage boxer, twice a British Amateur Junior Heavyweight finalist when aged 14 and 15. He could have been a contender, but for the persistence of a scout at local soccer club, Norwich City—a quintessential small town team nicknamed the Canaries–who persuaded him he could have a career in soccer. Justin was signed as an apprentice and spent his school holidays honing his skills with the pros.

After moving to the United States, in 1998 he was questioned by police when a seventeen-year-old boy accused him of sexual assault. He was charged, and an arrest warrant for him was issued in Howard County, Maryland, on 3 April 1998, but he had already left his flat.According to his suicide note, fearing he would not get a fair trial because of his homosexuality,he fled to England,where he killed himself in London in May 1998. His suicide note stated that the sex was consensual.In 2020, Fashanu was inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame.

https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/the-life-and-death-of-justin-fashanu/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Fashanu

Cc lalasticlala seun mynd_44

Glad to see Britain has abandoned its bigotry.

budaatum:
Glad to see Britain has abandoned its bigotry.

Yankee has taken over ...

Fash the Bash.

He was very good with his elbows.

Hanged himself when he was about to arrested for banging an underage boy.

Of course, he claimed he was framed. But never seen a culprit admit the crime.

He and his bro dumped Nigeria for England National Team at the height of racism. Younger Fashanu played 1 or 2 friendlies and that was it. When Andy Cole... Darren Bent despite being goal bangers were sparingly used because they are Black.

Stop calling those born outside the shores of nigeria as nigerians.

If u thought they were talking about John fashanu
Gather here


Jump out of the thread like......

He had no business being with someone underage, especially someone he's 20 years younger than. That's absolutely disgusting

Eyahhhh!!!

Bet he had orgasm and erection while playing with other men on the field.

Nobody cares

BlackPantherxXx:
Fash the Bash.

He was very good with his elbows.

Hanged himself when he was about to arrested for banging an underage boy.

Of course, he claimed he was framed. But never seen a culprit admit the crime.

He and his bro dumped Nigeria for England National Team at the height of racism. Younger Fashanu played 1 or 2 friendlies and that was it. When Andy Cole... Darren Bent despite being goal bangers were sparingly used because they are Black.

What of Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole,Emile Heskey,Theo Walcott and Raheem Sterling...
Over a 100 black players have played for the England National Team....
How many whites players have played for any Black nation.
Let's stop this racism mentality...

BobbieZion:


What of Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole,Emile Heskey,Theo Walcott and Raheem Sterling...
Over a 100 black players have played for the England National Team....
How many whites players have played for any Black nation.
Let's stop this racism mentality...

Just sit down... Read my post slowly especially

"At the height" part.

Don't rush to comment, it is not by force to do so when you have nothing meaningful to contribute.

BlackPantherxXx:


Just sit down... Read my post slowly especially

"At the height" part.

Don't rush to comment, it is not by force to do so when you have nothing meaningful to contribute.

You go back and read your comment

BobbieZion:


You go back and read your comment

You do so.

Always spoiling our image abroad


Yoruba people eeehhh






Anyway I sell cows o

as i take dey like tis, nothing concern me with who wan be gay, who wan dey sleep with cow, who want make them dey refer to them as X instead of female/male

this cow administration don show me shege, i am trying to protect my mental health and eat enough healthy food

Homo Dem don dey over plenty of recent or Maybe na now I begin to notice them.

Na so one come dey disturb me for Facebook, despite the fact that I had openly told him I wasn't gay and loved banging women.

I had to make threats before he could stop.

BlackPantherxXx:
Just sit down... Read my post slowly especially

"At the height" part.

Don't rush to comment, it is not by force to do so when you have nothing meaningful to contribute.

It's not the speed of reading that's the problem here, but a lack of knowledge of what he comments about. Please forgive the admission of his lack of knowledge and provide him with some education.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/extra/5v1pvdk8mr/Racism-in-football-our-stories

emmabest2000:
If thought they were talking about John fashanu
Gather here


Jump out of the thread like......

John and Justin Fashanu were brothers