The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.

Detective see aside of life the average person is never exposed to.

I spent thirty four years as a cop.

For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.

That's what I did for a living.

I was a homicide detective.

I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys.

Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.

The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law.

The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talked to.

Some of the content and language might be confronting.

That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.

Join me now as I take you into this world.

Today, I spoke to Iaran Roberts, the former hard man of the NRL.

We spoke about his career during a brutal era when on field violence and macho masculinity was a culture Eran also talked about how how difficult was during this time dealing with his sexuality and the consequence has been the first high profile professional sportsman coming out in public as gay.

We also had a deeply personal conversation about the emotional impact the murder of seventeen year old Aaron Light, a young man Iaran was very close to, and the remorse he felt following Aaron's brutal murder.

Ian also talked about how he only found his true self after rugby league through acting activism and helping others deal with their own insecurities.

Before we started this interview and told me nothing was off limits.

Well, Iran was true to his word and it has made for a fascinating conversation.

I find Ian's story quite inspirational.

Have to listen, Iaran Roberts.

Welcome to I Catch Killers.

It's nice to be here.

It's nice to be well.

I catch killers.

It's been intimidating to be asked to come on, I catch killers.

Okay, okay at a police interview room.

Let's relax.

Only worry when I start to caution you.

I've been a big fan of yours for a long time, and I think obviously on the football field, but more for the courage that you took to stand up and be yourself, to be your true self.

And I think a lot of people shy away from that.

They go through life and yeah, trying to please people.

Or conforming to what people want them to be and so full credit to.

You, thank you, mate.

But I will say I have been very fortunate.

I mean it was such a lot.

You know, obviously you're referring to my sexuality when I came out, like, I've been very fortunate, mate, I am, and actually I mean I'm sixty.

I'm sixty next month, right, So I've been totally like comfortable in my own self now for thirty.

You know, even when I was even when I was a kid, I was always completely comfortable like owning it and admitting to myself that I was saying sex attracted.

I mean, I like, I've never been any had any internalized homophobia, which I'm really grateful for because a lot of people do have to, you know, to do something, struggle with it, deal with it.

Yeah, I mean, I I can never so it hasn't been I mean, yes, I've been fortunate, and it's you know, it has been difficult at times, but yeah, I've never had an issue with it.

Yeah, I mean I suppose.

I mean, even thinking back now, the first time I remember that I was different if if that's I didn't know, if that's the right word way to use that word, but it would have been I would have been seven nineteen seventy two.

And I only know that because there was a show called Checkerboard and it was it was It was aired in nineteen seventy two, and I went to the fiftieth anniversary about three years ago of this show.

And it was the first and this is why I know.

I was seven years old.

It was the first time to gay men had kissed on TV.

And I was sat in the lounge room with my dad watching it.

This is this is gospel and these two men kiss like kissed on TV.

And I was like, Oh, that's what I do with my best mate, Barry Riley.

You know.

It was just kids, kids being kids, right, I just have a bit like and my dad and I just used the language my dad said.

My dad was like, Oh, these fucking queers make my skin creep, you know, And I was like, Oh, I probably shouldn't tell dad about Barry.

Well, you know what I mean.

But I mean, I went to that fifteenth anniversary one of that the gentleman Peter is still alive.

That was like about three years ago.

So I mean, that's but I even knew before that that I was but I also knew that, you know, it was something everyone else had a problem with.

You know.

Obviously my dad's reaction was was just of its day, you know, like, yeah, but yeah, I never I never strugg internally, mate.

So I've always been really grateful that that I had that makeup, that I didn't challenge myself with it, and I didn't feel that I was in any way dirty or wrong.

A lot of people go through that whole experience, yeah.

Because you hear a lot of people talk about that type of experience and that they suppress it and fight it and the whole life, and yeah, it's enlightened when they come out, yeah midway through their life.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've never had that.

I've never had that sense of feeling in any way internalized anything negative, you know, like I just haven't.

I I consider myself really fortunate.

That's why I say unfortunate.

I've been fortunate.

No, I understand well, As I said, I wanted to get you on for a long time, and the opportunity presented itself beautifully earlier this week, when Johnny had lined us up to do a boxing session together.

Johnny lewis so nice to say him, He's like he's one of those rare human beings.

I can honestly say I and Johnny is one of those one of those people you meet in life you're a better person for having met Johnny Lewis, like once you've knocked around and like spent some time with him and saying the way he's the way he lives his life in his philosophy, like it's empowered.

I mean, you understand what I'm talking.

He's one of those rare people.

You know.

It's like like if he's one of those people that if if someone else ever said something, you know, like negative about Johnny, you have to say, mate, what's wrong with you?

Johnny?

Like there's you know, you've got that wrong man, Like you've you know, there's something wrong with you, Like Johnny is He's just He's Yeah, he's one of those rare human But I love the guy.

I think because he as we're discussing the other other day when we're training, that he's a mental to so many people.

But I think I'm looking for what that special magic is and he just accepts people for who he is, and he looks for the good in people, and that that's seems.

He doesn't matter to Johnny where you said socially like you know what I mean, as long as you've got a smile on your face and and you're respectful, that's that's yeah, that's everyone's an egal Yeah.

It's a good way to go through life, isn't it.

Yeah, it's great.

But I just like it was kind of nice.

Could Like I said, I haven't hit the pads ranging for a while, and then ten fifteen minutes into it starts to get back into your body.

It's like things get in your body and like anyone that that recall can't and you start a couple of times you hit hit the pads really well and just like you can feel the strength and oh yeah that feels great, you know, I just remember.

Yeah, so that was kind of nice.

But I will say I'm sixty next month.

The day after, oh my god, I felt I felt my shoulders felt like I was one hundred mont I was just.

Says something, doesn't you lose it?

But I wondered if you, yeah.

My shoulders particularly just but I've had issues with my shoulders now for a long time.

But I do.

Yeah, I'm not twenty, you know, I mean when you're twenty, like when you're fifteen hitting about twenty.

You're never going to be fifty and sixty, are you?

No, that's just that's for dead people.

That's true, right, you can't even think about it.

That's never going to happen to you.

But yeah, get to your catches as all.

Yeah, you're you're a lot of things for a lot of people like you've had.

I think even I'm sure you describe yourself as an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary times and things.

But you know, you're a footballer, you're an actor, you're an activist.

You've come out on so many different issues, and you take a stand on things.

I suppose the question and trying to introduce you to the podcast here, how would you describe yourself?

It's a tough question.

That's a I'm gonna have to memory and come back around.

And I had never thought of it like that.

I mean, that's really you know, I don't know if anyone's how do I view myself as.

I'll help you help you out a bit in terms of what you've done in life, what you've achieved, And you've achieved good things in different different areas, and success is measured in different different ways.

But you followed your passions on different things.

Do you see yourself as a footballer or do you see yourself as an actor or a combination of all these things.

I think you know, people are complex man, Like you know, age changes changing changes as well.

My views now, like in lame, will change on Like like I said earlier, mate, you know when you're fifteen to twenty, you're never going to be sixty.

Yeah, you know, like everything changes.

I yeah, I think I look at my mum and dad and how they struggled, you know, I mean they really struggled.

I mean I'm a ten pound pom.

My mum and dad came out here.

They would have been twenty seven.

They came out on a boat, so I would have been about I was about one and a half.

I had an older brother, Paul, and an older sister Julie.

They were a couple of years older than May.

My mom and dad came out here with you know, less than about fifty quid in their pocket.

I just and you know, like it's kind of weird, but not weird.

Don't I say this one.

I'm about to say it's going to sound really negative, Like I grew up and contradictory.

I grew up in a very It almost feels uncomfortably saying I just say I grew up in a very racist, misogynistic, homophobic family, but I grew up in a very loving family.

Yeah, and it sounds like my mom and dad.

The truth is that, you know, my mom and dad left England and they brought their three kids with them because there was too many blacks coming to to London, right, I just be honest.

But my mom and dad's journey while being here my dad passed away ten years ago, has been unbelievable, like their journey in themselves.

And that you asked me who I was.

I think my dad kind of answered that for moment.

My dad passed away ten years ago, and just be prior to him passing away, he got interview.

The interview was about me, but you know they were asking my dad.

And I have a younger sister too.

My younger sister, Kyle, was born a couple of years after we got here, so you know I have had two brothers, two sisters and a brother.

And the I think this kind of answers you, kind of answers your question, not so much about me, but the way I was brought up and where I like to feel like who I am.

The interview, I asked my dad.

You know, they said, my dad, you must be very proud of your son and what he's done, you know, referring to me in my situation and my dad, but like it was like the best, the most.

My dad was very uneducated, but the answer like it was Shakespearean.

My dad said, you know when they said, you know, you must be very proud of your son, and my dad said, I'm equally as proud of all my children.

But I am so grateful all that grateful that I was gifted a gay son and I got to see the world as it really is.

Wow.

That's that's insightful, isn't it.

It's true like a bit, but it's like like like adversity, you know, like adversity is what makes us that that's that's what you really see, that's what shines in people.

My dad was like say, like I was, like, where did that come from?

You said, that's how I feel.

He said, that's you know I felt.

And my dad was When I first came out to my parents, I didn't they didn't have We didn't talk for a number of years.

And that's because that was they fire problems.

I was really stubborn.

I was always like you'd always said, it didn't matter who I brought home, you know, as I was growing up, you would love them because I brought home someone the same sex.

My parents initially, you know, wouldn't allowed my then partner into the house.

And I saw we didn't.

We didn't see each other or speak for a number of years.

But just their journey look like that process of allowing change to happen, Like, I think that is what you know, sometimes you just got to allow change to happen.

It's like you don't have to agree with someone, but you can always have a conversation with someone.

Yeah, I don't know if that's answering.

Well, you can have some kindness and just whinding it back a little bit with your your parents coming out.

I am always amazed that people that can establish a new life in another country.

It takes courage, doesn't it.

Like, yeah, people say there's life can be hard.

I can't even comprehend, you know, the courage it takes to just be terrifying, right and after another country, Yeah, one terrifying, the other thing about the values and you talk about that your parents had they said racist views, and that it's also a generational thing, isn't it that the world has changed, Like I give, I hear comments from people, you know, a generational two ahead, I think you can't say that anymore.

Yeah, but on.

The wrong side wrong side history.

I dare say, you know, in thirty years time, there'll be comments that we're saying now and people just look at those two dinosaurs.

That's not the way you're meant to.

Meant meant to.

A question that might be easier to answer, is what's scarier walking out on the football field about to face an angry pack, walking on stage, walking onto a stage with a live audience.

You know, I think for either of those two situations can be terrifying the first initially, but I think everything with like in confidence, everything becomes unbelievably powerful and engaging.

And yeah, I don't mean, you know what the word is, but it becomes exciting.

I mean, I yeah, like initially playing rugby league in the first few times you played first grade, it's terrifying, you know, for the first twelve months.

Really walking on stage the first few times as well, But there comes up, there comes like it's almost like an evolution within yourself of growth or I don't even know if that's the right description, but confidence, once you start finding your own way, finding your own mans, finding your own path and the way you do things.

There was you know, there was a number of times during my playing career that I that I was playing like with and I think any any sports person will understand what I'm about to say.

When you play with like just supreme confidence, So like you know, you hear that expression, things slow down and you just get into this flow.

Well, it really does.

Like there was some you know, it's probably happened to me half a dozen times in my playing career.

I had patches for like a few months where everything was just I was in control.

I was totally confident that my ability or it totally knew what I was going to do before I did it.

And that kind of happened.

But it took a long time to get to that point as well.

You know, my initial couple of years at South I started playing first grade at House in eighty six.

You know, I was like I was terrified of my own teammates, That's.

True, but they were scar it was I was.

I was in this pack with Les Davison, like David Boyle, Mario Fanic, Wayne Chisholm.

You know, I was just like I was scared of like I was playing in the same team.

It was just like and they had a really like I kind of caught that tail into that, that generation of that the way the game was played played played there.

I was brutal.

Yeah, there was a lot of like cheap shots and.

No place for the faint heart.

You know, it is, it is what it is.

But I mean I, as a young guy might coming into the and into this house pack.

That was the first year George Piggins was there, and Gus Goob was in the second row as well as his final year, and he kind of coached the team.

But I had a high work rate.

I didn't.

I wasn't really I mean I like thirty forty tackles whatever and number hit.

That was always my style player as a young guy.

But I did learn after a while you kind of had to It's almost like you had to mold you had to mold yourself into something more than what was just basic and that kind of scene basic.

What I mean by that is like I mean when I left Souse in a United like Les Davis and used to cut guys in half in that And I'm not advocating for that anymore, but I'm just saying, like he said this style, and I knew when I went from South to Man, I just wanted to change my game, be a bit more enforce and really take ownership of the game in the forward packing like yeah, but you just have to and that comes with confidence.

In just the first couple of years at House, you know, I was terrified Mason time.

I mean, I mean the first game I played with the Charity Ship and we were playing some George and I was like, opposite me, it was Craig young Man, like he was like a bit of a god, like he was one of my favorite players.

I just like he was like this oak tree, right, there's no change.

There's no change in his like his shape from his necks, from his head down to his feet, like it's just.

Like this, it's just a block.

Oh man.

He was like a redwood.

And we used to have Tuger Craig Common.

We had this move, this call called Henry.

It was you all in right.

If your little nippy half back.

And the second the second, the second scram Tiger walks through Henry's on, Henry's on Craig Youngs just was I was like, I went the water please, no.

No, I'm like at the call of Henry.

H and I like I made some feeble attempt.

I just wanted him to put like Craig Young to put me out of my misery.

Like I was just like I was an order guy.

You know.

He nearly put his like his fist through the back of my head.

But I was just but but that was that was just being phased out at that time, like it and I'm like, I'm grateful for it.

But it did also give me a realization of how physical the game had to be at that time it was and if you and if you didn't adjust your play and then that's what I'm what I meant when I kind of when I towards eighty eight eighty nine, when I really started to become aware, you've got to change the style of played to make this work for you.

Like that, Yeah, as the game is evolving you, you've got to evolve too.

I want to I want to talk about talk about your career, but before I just want to get a sense of your your growing up, where where'd you grow up.

So, like I said, we were ten pound palms.

We grew up in in the hostel at Dacyville.

We were there for three or four years when we first came out here.

Then we moved to Erubro and that's back in the Housing Commission.

We lived.

Moved from Aruba to I went to Uber Bay School from kindergarten right through to high school.

Then we moved to South Could you always in the housing Commission?

Yeah?

And I think we left the Housing Commission my mom and dad bought their first home in Botany.

I would have been about sixteen then.

I think that would have been about eighty one.

And did was football always your passion or well?

My dad used to be a boxer, right like, so it kind of I kind of learned to box, not learned to box.

I mean, that's a hard way to describe it.

But my dad used to train my brother and Ice.

I've kind of always been and I've always been.

Really I felt really fortunate my dad did that because for my own situation later in life.

And yeah, I've always kind of been able to look after myself, like not look after myself, but you get what I mean.

But like I do it and I think and I've been grateful for on Like a Crime podcast often when I say about the benefits of people being taught self defense, whether it's boxing or whatever stuff, it gives you the confidence to stand up for yourself.

Yeah, and maybe that's what it proves yourself.

Maybe that's what it is.

I think it's a good, good thing.

So I do understand what you're saying.

And even in policing, the fact that I could look after myself at helped, Like, yeah, I could back it up if I needed to back back it up.

And I think for me growing up, the hardest thing was I didn't learn to read and write in my thirties when I went to night I was dyslexic, right, But but that wasn't that wasn't a thing when I was a kid, was diagnosed.

It wasn't like it just dyslexily wasn't a thing I was.

I was slow, right, and always always used to be well, this is one of those things.

I was never in any way uncomfortable about being the same sex attracted and knowing that as I was going up, But I was always incredibly shameful of of not being able to read and right, I was that kid.

I got suspended loads of times.

But I was that kid that the teacher.

And this is when we used to read out of books get up and read.

I'd make it about something else.

I kick the table over, storm out, or just throw a tantrum, get sit outside.

And I kind of like used to usual to be really ashamed of not being able to read right, like really shade.

I repeated school a couple like classes years, a couple of times, and that was always really embarrassing for me as well, that I.

Was years you were hiding it by you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't talk about I was always in the special class, but you know that that was always like so embarrassing.

It was like really, And then they say, there's that one teacher in your life.

I like to mention this because if I really did change my life, I went right through school not being under it.

I was always pretty good with numbers, but so maths and science comp but I could never read write.

Then when when I retired from footage and I wanted to get back into acting, not get back into acting, I just wanted to do some maybe do some community stuff or some like community theater.

Because the other thing about being in the ensemble and that growing up, I could never I never got any leads in that because I couldn't read.

I couldn't do I could do that like the chorus stuff or anything, but read the light like and that was always really embarrassing for me.

Anyway.

So when I retired, my car had broken down, this true story.

My car had broken down just up the road from Nider and I was walking by and this is now I'm probably about thirty four.

Yeah, I was walking by nighter on an Zach Parade and Kensington and Kingsford, and I thought, oh, I just duck in there Nighters see if there's someone in there might be able to help me do some like get back into some sort of community theater, if they know someone blah blah blah.

So I went in there and I was you know, went to the front desk and asked, and they buzzed Kevin Jackson.

Kevin was the one of the acting teachers there.

He changed my life.

Was like, now Kevin knew me.

Kevin was a gay man as well, but Kevin knew of my story even though he wasn't a football person.

I didn't know Kevin up until that point anyway, and I said him about getting back in the community service.

He said, oh, come on, we'll do a cold bread and say how you're going, and we'll see where he had.

If you're only good, you know, we might be able to help you.

Blah blah blah.

So he took me in, you know, he took me in this room and he gave me this, this piece to read out.

And he could tell as he gave you men, I just like that the heat the hot head thing you get and like I just read it like ah, man, I just and he looked.

He said are you okay?

And I just like, ah, I just I can't read.

I'm sorry.

And he said have dyslexia.

And I had heard of that, but no not, I'd never he said.

I said, I can't read and write.

He said that's yeah.

He said that's okay, he said, he said, so you can't read you He says, what we'll do is this.

This changed my life.

He said, what we'll do is we'll take the piece I want your learn.

You go home and just listen to it.

Learn it open when you're ready to come back, and we'll see you get That doesn't sound like much, right, change my life, make like it was the first time that he just seemed to not care, like he.

Really so that dropped all your embarrassment.

I mean, I was still really uncomfortable, right, but it was just like this, this whole daorting really was that easy to move on from this, Like it was one of those things in my head.

I'm just like I can't believe, like it really really frustrated him.

Like I was just like, I have spent so much time agonizing over not being able to writ and this guy just like at first I was a bit angry, and I'm just like, it's more important than that I can't read, you know what I mean.

He was just like, it's nothing, nothing around it.

And then you know, I learned the police went back in and he's he trained me for about six months, and then at the end of the six months, he said, what do you do the audition for, you know, for the club going for the three year course, And I said, I'm a bit old, and he was like, mate, if you're old, if you're old enough, if you're good enough, you're old enough.

That works both ways, right, he said, it works both ways.

So I didn't and I didn't, and for the first six months a night.

I didn't tell anyone that I couldn't well, we told a couple of teachers that I couldn't read and write, and he would help me record stuff and that, and then then we learned phonetics, which is another form of language.

I like writing and that that's kind of phonetics is what saved me.

I mean, I I right now like I'm no Shakespeare, and I spoke about it before, but I can read and write.

I can like I can read and write.

Like I said, I'm no Shakespeare.

But just that one moment and like changed my life.

It's just almost like I remember a bit angry and the first time he says, oh, do you have disc That's not why I feel like, I say, what are you talking about?

But this has destroyed my life like that when you talk about this is nothing.

So it's just one yeah, and yeah, it's just one of those moments.

It just and it kind of gave me this insight into other stuff as well, like.

Yeah, look, I think it's so important.

And yeah, we're always talking the ways of reducing crime and different things.

I've seen it so many times when I was in the cops with people that struggle and you know, you lashed out when you're in class and all that, Yeah, and carry on in the society.

And I've seen blokes that, yeah, they're not bad people, but they're hiding something.

Even in the interview room.

You sign this statement and you push the way they'll say something just to and over the years you work out you could spot it.

Someone's just hiding the fact that they can't can't read or write.

And it's something that we really should stigmatized.

Well I suppose we have in a way, but really help people, help people.

My partner Dan, he's he now works for the Education department, but he's a school teacher.

Yeah, and we've been been toga in only twenty years.

But the other good thing is he teaches cater year six, so he's been great for me as well.

Like the whole reading and writing and almost learning to read and write in your forties and fifties, it's been wonderful.

It would have been the world.

It's like this, I don't know how to explain this.

Gas It's like this whole world got opened up to me like that, this whole world that I've been like moving alongside of, but I've never been able to step into it reading books and just like sounds like it doesn't sound like much, right, but like reading books was like, oh my god, I've missed out on this whole thing.

It's like this whole other world of experience.

It was incredible.

Wow.

Okay, So your childhood, when did you realize football was going to be your career.

At what point in time did you think did you have any aspirations to work in I want to do this, I want to do.

That, sparky by trade electrician.

Right, So.

I left in year ten, got a job as a sparky, and I just thought that that would be that would be it for me.

I mean, like I said, my education was never really valued in my family.

My my my two sisters were always going to be cleaners or secretaries, and my brother and I were either going to be like truckies or traders.

That was, there was no real value education with my mum and dad because my mom was a cleaner mast of light.

There's nothing wrong with that, yeah, and my dad was like a project major process worker.

Yeah.

So footy was And don't forget you're now talking at a time when this is like you know, the early eighties and that like players were on thirty and forty grand.

That was big money, right.

A lot of them were still working.

We used to train at house.

We used to train at like four thirty, so everyone could get home from work and then go to training.

That was a real thing.

Like that was like, you know, like that was just the way.

It was more in your day job than you would playing footage.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was kind of interesting that things kind of panned out that way for me.

And then when I was about I suppose I was about eight A, nine A and I was you know, I was I was playing for mascot at the time.

I was pretty good at I had a bit of a sliding doors moment too, because I was going to go and like I did what Boxing was a bit of a thing for me as well.

I was just footy kind of happened before boxing, if that makes sense.

The opportunity.

Yeah, And I didn't really want to I'm going to be honest.

I wanted to step away from from from rugby league.

I didn't really want to play sports and that if I was going to make those because I was always the only thing I was worried about being same sex attractive is I didn't think they I thought they were like water and oil, they could never wait.

The culture of the league at that time definitely homophobic.

Just it's much image and it's not the type of thing that you would feel like that would be readily accepted.

Yeah, And I absolutely felt that's a good way of explaining.

I absolutely felt that.

I remember I was the best seven A A A and I said to my dad that I was going to like stop playing footy for that reason.

Like, you know, I just I wasn't out to my parents at this time, right, But I'd already when I say I wasn't out, but I'd already been on the scene.

And you know, I I'd already been out you know, the Oxford Street like it wasn't and I was kind of out privately, if that makes sense.

I was comfortable to myself.

I mean, I even I used to have a Grand Corolla station wagon.

It was an old work van.

In the back of the van, I used to have these aren't going to sound like a tickhead now.

We've heard a lot on this.

I used to have these clothes in the back of my station wagon.

It was like old military jackets.

And I would go out drive around the corner and get changed into these fat like and then then go to the Exchange and down Oxford Street and patches and like in in a flashy, flashy year that whatever that you know, that that that era was with the big hair and that sorte of thing.

And then when I come home, I get changed again before I went and put put them in the back of it.

That to put stress on you, like yeah, but it was also fun.

The first time I went out in Oxford Street, I was about sixteen.

I found I say this all the time.

I went to a place called float Flows Palace.

I just got the bus in the three ninety six, and there was this whole other world that opened up to me, like I felt like I had a crush on the barman.

And then I left that place and I walked down the road to the Exchange Hotel, and for anyone of our generation, they would know the Exchange and that as soon as I walked through those doors, I was like, oh my god, I found my people.

This is this is where I belonged.

It was that whole eighties punk rock slash, you know.

But then you go from that environment, then you're back in the football culture.

It must have been.

It was yeah, it was.

It was black and like it was very different.

Yeah, but I do just and I used to live for Friday and Saturday nights.

It was anyway, So I was, I say, like, and I was at that stage, you know, I just said, I just said the dad, I don't know, I'm not going to play anymore.

And my dad was a boy and my dad, my mum and dad who really supported me, like taking me to My dad always was always the manager or something of the young teams.

I was playing like a lot of parents are not invested.

My dads to love it too, and I was, you know, I was playing good football as a young boat.

And it happens like and I I was going, I'm going to step away.

He said you can't.

Boy, you know there's a big chance.

And so I promised my dad, I'll give it one more year.

And I got graded that year.

You know, like if my dad hadn't a like kind of twisted mom and like walked away, I would have definitely walked away, like because I didn't think I just because I knew I was gay, like I just like and I knew I like I had tried to date girls and tried to do with that like that was was not going to work for me, you know, I was, and I knew the time was going to come that I was going to have to tell my parents and and I just didn't think that, Yeah, you speak earlier about the conflict that I that I saw that there's two wells kind of clashing or whatever.

You know, I just didn't I didn't.

Think they could could you could you could juggle it?

Question when when did you come out to your parents?

When did they find?

What about twenty two?

And like like I came out in like just an awful way as well.

I mean there are good you know, there are good ways to come out, and there were ways that aren't so good.

And in saying what I'm about to say that there was there are one hundred thousands of stories much more inspirational than mine, But there are thousands of stories much more tragic, mate, and like the consequential the mine as well, you know, like I just want to make I came and my mum used to work at Connie as like as a cleaner.

This is how I came out.

So it was nineteen eighty seven and I was having a really good year as its house.

Actually I'm giving myself a pat on the back.

I got proper the year that year for the daim Yeah, okay, it was my second year in in the in the top rode.

Anyway, my mum was working at Quotas and these these two boys.

My mom's at lunch and my mum's having a sandwiches or whatever, and that just opposite.

Like we are now two boys reading a newspapers.

Now boys just been boys with banter and just sledging and that type of thing.

And then not realizing that the article they were reading was about me and not read realizing that, you know, the mother of that person was.

My mom's incomplete is.

In complete earshot.

And then you know, I had been going out to Oxford Street, been doing that since I was sixteen, and I had you know, I had partners at that by that stage.

And I'll just use a language that was used so you can understand, and I called this loose language and the consequences and the effects that loose language can have and the devastating effects it can have.

Money.

So these two boys are reading a little bit uncomfortable with These two boys are reading that article.

Mum said, here reading your sandwiches, and one boy says to the other boy, that's saying Roberts, he got caught sucking a guy off at Oxford Street.

Right, So just to be clear, that wasn't true.

You were clear of that.

I didn't get caught, No, no, but that wasn't true.

It's just two boys bantering.

But you can imagine the effects I had on my mum, right, she was and my mum by that stage, people were like I had a hot people hecklers and that at the foot would scream stuff out and it was it was definitely out there.

My mom had to go home.

She was she's not well.

I got a phone call off my dad later that night, and, like I said, this is a pretty ordinary story for gay people.

They've heard these stories before, right, Like we've all heard very simple stories.

Dad, you said, oh boy, you better come home and your mum heard something that work.

We need to talk about it.

I got home.

You love this bit and I sit down.

I walked into the house.

It was like someone that died.

My mom's bawling her eyes and my dad sits in front of me and I sit down and I was like that, dad, what's happened?

And he mate, your mum's heard something at work.

We just want to hear you say that you're not gay, and that'll be good enough for us.

So you know, like no, there was the way he worded it.

So we spoke about it after like and I'm like, oh no, that I'm gay, and my mom went crazy right like she just but uh, this is a very familiar story for for gaying.

They would have heard these stories before.

But my dad is real.

Actually was the best.

He stood there and like he was just staring at me, and I'm just like looking at him.

He's like, but you play front row?

He was like, you play front row?

Like he was stuck on that.

Like he said about three or four times, like your front rower.

Like he kept saying this thing about the front row.

And I'm just like so like he said, like it like it didn't compute, you know anyway.

I didn't didn't.

I didn't didn't go down.

Well, I looked like I left the heir we did.

Uh, you know that they they weren't happy, but they said stuff that like you know like okay, well and my uncle, my dad's uncle Jack was gay.

Uh, but it was one of those things the whole family denied and Uncle Jack and uncle John.

He's his special friend.

Like we're always invited, but no one your uncle dad Jack was gay.

They like Luis.

I think families have got everyone's got.

Jack, right, everyone's got every family's got an uncle Jack.

I just said, Dad, your uncle Jack nor he was?

I said, Dad, come on, man like anyway.

But that was years later.

But yeah, like my dad says something like you know and but at that stage I was I think my partner's name was Shane.

Uh.

And he said, oh, well you know you told them that Shane and anyway, he just so you know you can't come around.

I said, well, if Shane can't come around, Dad, I'm not coming around until you're get in your head.

That was That was why Dad, until you that was the line in the sand his dad, do you get in your head?

This is who this is the way it's going to be.

I'm not coming We didn't.

We didn't speak for no reusement.

It's just but it's funny my dad's reaction.

You just stuck on that on that reway.

You're front right, but you play front right.

Yeah.

Well, I think and as you said, a lot of families have got stories.

I'll check with my sister from allowed to tell this story.

We might have to have to edit it.

But she's gay and she was going to come out and my parents were having Christmas up up the coast and I wasn't going.

I had something else on that.

And my sister said, I'm coming out to my mum and dad.

I said, I'm up there.

This is going to be interesting.

It's nice.

She says, she was out to you.

Yeah, that's that's that already tells me, mate, that's that's a that's a nice relationship between you.

Yes, yeah, it was a good relationship.

So we're at the Christmas everyone's sitting around for the Christmas dinner or whatever it was, and Michelle comes out and my parents are saying, I think her friend is they're just good friends.

And I'm going, are you sure?

Mom?

And Dad?

I know it's coming, so I'm sort of frowing fuel on the and then she's come out and Dad's there, okay, well, and he's sort of fairly easy with it.

Mum was fine with it, but she all of a sudden decides she had to pick up all the plates off the off the table, and she's busy doing the doing the washing up, but the next day was the best bit.

Mum was so rattled by it.

She's telling people, Ah, my daughter came out as Lebanese.

She's so rattles you couldn't even say lesbian.

She's saying Lebanese.

So now we've declared that mum's got a Lebanese daughter because she was telling people just how rattle sweet.

But do you think I think part of it is Yeah, I could be wrong, and everyone everyone's different, but I always think it's part as a parent, you want your kid's life to be easy.

And I'm sure part of the reaction from your dad would be knowing the world and your mum knowing the world that your life's going to be that little bit harder.

Absolutely, absolutely, you know that they do think it was going to be difficult though, and they were you know.

The other thing is they were worried about what people would think that make, you know, and there was that still a thing that gay men a week becau there was all that.

I mean, I I'm part of an education program called Think About It and we we it's theater sports stuff.

One of the a couple of the scenes that I'm involved in.

Uh, we go out to corporations and if the corporations, and we started off during the NRL.

That's how it started on all the teams, and we touch on subjects.

We do scenes where around misogyny, violence against women, homophobia, drugs in sport and with the corporations, you know again all those things about discrimination, and we get a couple of people up involved from the audience and then and then we talk about it and how best it could have navigated.

Uh, And I tell I kind of tell that story about my coming out and the way that we have a couple of saying around homophobia and the best way approaches.

And I told my mom that, well, I've been doing that think about stuff now for well over ten years.

I told my mom just recently, only a couple of months ago, that I do that scene and I talk about I mentioned occasionally mentioned about the situation with her at lunch and that and how it all came to her head and my mom found out.

And I kind of make it a bit jovial and like when I tell the corporations and the teams, and I make it a bit funny because I find it easier if you can take fund at yourself.

It lets people in.

I tell my mom, That's how I do it.

My mom.

Mum's eighty five.

She broke down and started crying like she's because she remembers the way she acted and how and how catastrophic it was for her.

And I felt terrible like that I hadn't spoken to her about about and she's still dealing with that.

And that's what I was saying about that the power that you know that words have and symbols have.

It was just one of those like real grounding moments from them, like your mom, you're still dealing like my mom is one hundred.

My mom's grace ally of all the time for gay people now, right.

But she says, yeah, she still feels how her initial react and what she thought about me, and that how bad it makes her.

How the impact on you.

I can understand.

Words, you know, like LS language has a damaging though.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Your football career, so you started playing playing with South's you spent four years there.

Your football career is quite incredible.

You've played for I've just got some of the stats here.

You've played for Australia nine times, nine times.

As a dozen times.

I suppose I don't even know the number is.

Two hundred and thirteen first grade games South Sydney and Manly and Wigan and North Queensland.

You played state of Origin.

I've got a couple of things here.

By the age of twenty one, Jack Gibson, who's sort of renowned as the Guru of rugby league, described you as the best front brower in the game, and at one point in time you're the highest for profile player in the game and the highest paid player in the game.

That's a long time ago, and that's when that's you're talking about now.

When I went to man Like, I got twenty grand a year, yeah, and that was like that was that was when fifty grand was huge money.

Yea.

Yeah, I was fighttering, Yeah, but.

Johnny Johnny gave me an insight, took.

Me over the man.

He really took me under his wing mate.

He was.

He was such a champion mate.

And George Piggins didn't talk to him for a week.

Yeah, but in the end he'd be Gradually he.

Was a champion man.

You know, I played I went to Wigand too.

That was at the end of eighty six.

That was great, that was wonderful.

That's why I teamed up with I met Graham Lowe.

I'm still best friends with Lowie.

Now from New Zealand.

The whole Weigand experience was quite quite extraordinary.

Ters like that was an eighty six we played against the Kangaroos.

Yeah, that was probably one of my best games I think I'd ever played against the Kangaroos.

Again, it was one of those moments for me where I just started to find myself, find my ability and have confidence in myself.

Yeah.

Yeah, I've been I've been very lucky.

I've been very fortunate.

What are you Your teammates, your teammates at South Ye Souse You hadn't come out publicly at that point in time, but I think you described as the world's best.

Or worst worst kept secret secret.

Yeah, yeah, I mean Souse is.

I don't know how to explain it.

I mean I remember George Pickers took me aside at training one day, this has been about eighty seven and just mentioned it to me.

He said, oh, there's a lot of stories about you.

He was he was, and he was doing it solely to protect me, right, like you know, he was from that generation.

He's like, you know, it's not a good look for you.

Whatever.

You know, you've been seeing and he didn't.

He wasn't asking me if I okay.

He just knew I'd been going out doors for straight and I just said, George, I'm playing good foot mate, like this is about it would have been about eighty seven.

I said, I'm playing pretty good footy.

I know.

You said yeah, just what I'm here, you know, and I and he was like, yeah, you're right mate, Like he was really like that, like it's always like you had that you know what, you're right you're playing And what I mean is like he's like, that's why you're playing good footy.

Keep you on that, like it was one of those.

It was one of those moments he's just like like I was really comfortable with like that's what I mean.

I was just like I think it kind of He's like, oh no, he's right, he's playing good footy.

He's obviously like whatever you're doing, he must be doing it right.

You get what I'm saying.

It was like he wasn't like at first where he was like you he probably shouldn't be done.

I just jewish, but I'm playing good foot mat like like I'm happy, and he was like you know what.

It was one of those and one of those learning moments for me too.

You know.

I was just like because because yeah, I was, I was always uncomfortable with those two worlds clash, like yeah, it wasn't.

And then in eighty nine and ninety when I left the house together manly, I mean I was quite out on the scene, like like I used to take partners to funk like it was it's hard to explain.

It was.

It was like and journals I spoke in the journeys always wanted to ask me.

But but and they've always said that they wanted to respect that it was my privacy as well, which is kind of nice, right, Yeah, But it.

Would have been tough in that environment with that just hovering around, because you know, we talk about you had a lot of yappy players back then, but like I could imagine on the on the football field or not the players of people in the grads, yea.

And that's the other thing, but that's that was the one thing you did you to cut me, is like you can't you know, I couldn't protect people I cared for from that, like my mom and dad and family and friends, and when they used to have to listen to that stuff, and you know, like, I love them, but you can't protect them from that.

Just like in eight seven when I told you know, when I came out my dad we spoke about it.

So I can't protect you against that, Like, because how's it going to how's it going to affect us?

I'm like, I don't know, mam, but I can't protect you against that.

And that that must have hurt you because you can look after yourself.

But that's everyone who's had anyone who's different, has any sort of like that.

That is definitely that is anyone who's dealing with any sort of identity.

I mean they're dealing with themselves, they're also dealing with it on behalf of people they care about.

You Get what I'm saying is, yeah, so they're being dragged into into your your world as well.

So with with Souse when you went to when you went to Manly, is that when you you came out?

Well, what I was going to do and why did you?

Well?

I was one of the reasons.

It's also just the money I left house for.

I left because I was going to When I was going to Manly, I knew Graham Lowe was going to be there as well.

Low He didn't know I was going, but I a really good friendship with him.

I was going to come out in nineteen ninety, like when I left him, come out publicly.

But I'd always had this thing as a young person and with my mom and dad that I shouldn't have to come out, Like like I said to my mom and dad, whoever I bring home should be good enough for you.

Like if I say, mom and Dad, this is my partner, that should be enough, Like I've always been like I was always like that, but I've seen I since that visibility is really important as well, Like you have to accept that, like I used to be like that, Like it doesn't matter who I bring home.

Yeah, if this is my partner, this is my partner regardless, like going to the footy stuff, I shouldn't have to explain explain, like I said to George.

But I'm happy mate, like and I do regret that.

So but I kind of made my mind up in eighty nine and in eighty nine early ninety that I was going to come out publicly and just but then over in England and justin fashion you Premier League.

Yeah, he was the first man who he came out in ninety ninety as a gay man, the first man in professional team sport internationally, and he was brutalized by the English press Fleet Street.

That was terrible, mate, and the support that this supporter's base were awful to him.

And this is back in the time before as I put to my mobile phone, before phones, like if you follow the story, you had to read it in the newspaper, watch it on TV, you listen to it on the radio.

He was treated terribly by the supporters of the game, and in fairness looking back now, and he didn't handle it very well.

I thank himself and a lot of the stories that were released, I thought he could have made the situation easier for himself.

He came out in nineteen ninety, retired in ninety four.

That's a year I came out and died of suicide ninety eight.

That is such a familiar gay story.

Regardless of it, that is such a familiar gay story, and anyone and people listening who are particularly of my era, would I would understand that it is such that that's not shocking.

It is shocking, but it's not shocking.

I've heard that story multiple times from different people, you know, So yeah, that's yeah, and then when when I saw the way that he was being treated, I was like, I don't think that my parents would.

It wasn't about me.

I was just like I was worried about my parents and my family, like having to deal with all that stuff, you know.

And would I would imagine was there a part of you that's going, well, whose business is it?

Anyway?

That's what I mean, That's how I was.

That's how I call a press conference and go.

That's what That's what I mean, Like you just have to accept, like why am I?

But but I did realize like visibility, and that's that is my one regret that I was that that was ever in the closet, if that makes sense.

I wish I'd been more much more public right from the star, right from the start, but I kind of came to lot.

But I was the thing was I was always worried about my parents like that because they were so not handling me being gay.

You know, it's just so embarrassing and uncomfortable for them.

But it's understanding not from the parents, but from your point of view that you want to try and protect them.

Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, but yeah.

I can understand that it's almost like, well, whose business is it?

The Yeah, that was my that.

Was my the way I took it.

But yeah, I mean, but then in ninety four, I was just like I just had enough.

I just we were going away in the Kangaroo tour and I just thought, I'm going to go over there as a gate like as a gay person.

I'm not going to like like, I'm just going to speak openly about it.

A shame my partner like he like a lot of the players wives and partners go over and they stay in hotels somewhere else with Boomberys Shane came over and was staying in the burnbut the oven was coming to games and that Terry Terry Hill was my roomy and Terry and I was gay, and like he did know I was gay.

There was by this stage a whole load of people knew I was gay.

I was quite open about it, but just I hadn't come out officially to the public that if that makes sense.

I was always pushing back against I was like, because I was leading this gay life, right, like everyone knew this is like shame was my then partner.

Everyone knew shame was my page.

Yeah, not hiding it, but you're not making a public.

Yeah, I just but but I did realize then it's like, you know, it was crazy.

On that Kangaroo tour and from your from your book, I picked up that one of the managers or trainers or whatever made issue with the fact that Shane was having having.

Yeah, it's the best story of all time, and it's the like, this was the most well, I think it is the most significant moment in my Ragbila League career as a human being.

Yeah, like the change of direction we played I was having was we played the first Test at Wembley in front of one hundred thousand dollars one hundred thousand people.

We got we got beat by twelve men by the great Britain side, but they played out of their skins.

But up to that point, my form as front row I had been I was like the form front right, Like my FHM was great.

Like I mean I can say that quite modestly, like shaking my head, but my form was good.

I didn't expect to get but I even had a good game in that in that test match, right, And I said, like, when you're away on two players, wives and partners aren't allowed to stay with you.

In the hotel, they can come and visit and I have lunch and this, that and the other.

That was always common practice, right, and there was plenty of players wives and girlfriends over and Shane.

Shane was good friends with Terry Hill as well because it was because Bozo was coaching Manly at that time.

My teram Terry.

That's who Terry was playing for at the time.

Shane and Terry were good friends as well.

Anyway, after the first game, I love telling this story because it's it's just that the respect that that that I have for both this anyway, so you know, we played the first test match, got beat.

I wasn't expecting to get to get dropped.

And when you're a sports person, everything's about playing test footy and like playing it the elite, right, It's all that's what you're focused on.

It's like, you know, like so and he gets in the way that like it's like it's it's catastrophic.

On the Tuesday, Wednesday, after the test match, I get we get a phone call and Terry picks up the phone.

This is back when we used to have like literal real phones, have room phones and he says, oh, bows, I'll put him on and he like he puts the like puts the phone out of and he starts slipping his throat like he's going to catch it, you know.

I get the phone, I say bows and he says, robot made.

I need you to come up and see me straight away.

I'm like, oh, okay, Now, anyone who knows Bobby Fulton bozo like he's in a mortal right.

He literally isn't a mall but he's just cool as a cucumber.

Nothing gets under his skin.

Mate, always everything that was always fine.

I had a really good relationship with him.

And my initial thought is a ship, is he going to cut me?

You drop me?

And like I said about earlier about the elite sports person, and that's all I was, and I'm justified.

So he come and I played for animal skin anyway.

So I go up and obviously is in the penhouse up to go up to the top level and we'll get out the walk out the left and walk to the door and the door his door is just ajar, you know, like six inches and I look in and then like this, Bobby Fulton cools the cucumber.

He's pacing the room.

Right, this is not like but this is not Bobby Fulton stuff.

He's pacing and I felt like I was stood there for ages watching him patients and I'm sweating and what's going on?

And i'mknock on the door and he said, Robie, come in, sit down, mate, sit down, and he starts pacing the room again, just like rubbing his beard.

And by this stage now I'm thinking there's there's more going on here.

There's something happened to my mom and dad or something.

I'm thinking maybe there's some bad he's got.

I said, just stop, what's what's happening?

Just just tell me what's going on.

This is not good.

And he stops and he looks at and he just says, you gotta understand.

This is the hardest conversation this man's ever had in his life.

He looks at me, he says, Robert, you know what that in my day?

I don't care.

Mate, I'm like, what are you talking about it?

He says, you and Shane, my god, thanks both, thank you, thank you for saying that.

Mate.

That's he said, mate.

But he's not allowed to stay within the hotel.

Mate, you know the rules web money.

You've let me down.

I said, he's not base he's staying at the B and B up the road.

He just popped in every couple of days.

Said he says, so someone's give me the wrong information that I said, yeah, he said, all right, crab like starts copying.

He said, I knew you wouldn't let me down and said he's like, I knew you were three players.

Said I don't know what I was carried on for like and it was like he did this whole like theatrical things, like he's doing cartwheels on this and I it was just one of those moments.

I just like he stopped and I just said to him the bows, thank you mate, I mean, thank you mate.

I can't tell you what that meant to me.

He's like, all good mate, Yeah, no worries.

That was but it was the first time in my life I felt It's hard to explain to someone.

It was the first time in my life I felt validated.

And this sounds a bit dicky and say as a gay man like who was a rugby league player and.

Putting Bobby Fault in context, he is a legend.

He was worried.

That was the footing.

He was my coach at Manly.

I mean Shane used to be that the mascot, you know, the guy in the big an eagle soup with wings and like.

Doing car I'm sure there was.

Everyone was friendly with Shane, like Shane unfortunately passed away last year, had a heart attack, but we were best friends.

We stayed very good friends.

But it was just that moment, mate, I just like, like I remember like leaving that room ten foot tall man, just feeling like I'm just loving bows, just like feeling, oh, you get it, mate, you finally get it.

Because it was always an uncomfortable.

Situation for people to navigate you and I understood that, but it was just like I can't.

I just I played in every test match like like he didn't drop me or you like, we ended up winning the series to one.

We went over to France, I played a couple we played a couple of games and test test matches over there as well.

But it was just wonderful, mate.

Yeah, I can see how animated you are just thinking about it must have been just a real off way off the shoulders and like when when you had come out and how.

Human I came back, like it really hit that, like because I because like BOS made it easy for me too, because he must have spoked, because I like, later on I spoke, I'm just going to be game mate, like like it was kind of weird having that conversation with Bobby Film.

I'm just going to be game mate, Like it sounds like a weird thing to say.

I just I just like anyway, he said, that's all good, Robbie, like he had a word with a couple of Janneys.

He made it really, he made it really, he just just he made it.

He made it happen, like not made it happen.

But I told him that made I shouldn't have to This is what you gotta understand with me, mate, I shouldn't have to come out mate.

Yeah, like this is like I feel like I'm almost betraying myself here.

Like it's he kind of got it, like and I just just think about that moment.

But it's like you understood it, mate, Like it's just I'm playing good footy.

That was that George Piggins moment again, mate, Yeah, where George you know what I mean?

Where George even realized, oh, yeah, you're playing good footy.

This is all this is about, really, like you know what I mean?

It was almost that juggle in his mind.

It's just I've been very lucky.

Like well, there's been some good people for you, like supporting, supporting people and Terry Hill and others that would talk about.

But there was also discrimination within the team.

And there was one again I reference your book, but an incident where one of the players I don't know on the training field, tempers fled and he said some derogatory comments along the lines that you would imagine, and you took him the tar after and the thing I like, how you took him the task that there's going to be consequences if you did that again.

There's physical consequences.

But wake up yourself.

It's not just about the impact that has on me.

It's on the young players and other.

That's right, mate, Like it's like, you know, I lose language, like you can't do you can't do that like people.

It's quite literally there were people like I don't want to get into all those bad stats and statistics made, but it's a real thing, mate, Like as again that's I said, like a gay person listening to my coming out story is so familiar.

Listen to that, you know, justin fashion your story, it's such a familiar story.

It's that's real stuff.

Man.

It's like you know, like it's like with the Pride Round with Manly like a couple of years ago, you know, with they like and I'm not going to sit here criticize any place that's not it's not for me.

And just to explain that if listeners didn't understand what happened there and correct me if I'm wrong, that was going to be the Pride Round, and certain jerseys were made up with about colors or whatever it was.

And there was a couple of players in the team that said they're not going to play.

Six six of them set out for cultural reasons and religious reasons.

Right now, how do I put this up?

There would have been so many, so many young people in the regional areas who wouldn't have heard much news that that that week.

But because those some of those younger people were dealing with their own identity and that they definitely would have heard that story.

Yeah, yeah, you know, and like that.

It's that's what I'm talking about.

That's the consequences, you know.

Like, and I often feel like I because I do a lot of advocacy working in around this space in that area.

Man, when I talk when we talk about having these types of conversations.

I always feel like for me or for my side or whatever, it's not even side, it's just my opinion is I feel like I need to be understanding.

Just my starting point needs to be I need to be understanding of other people's potential misunderstanding.

Okay, that's my starting point, and like you've got to have a conversation.

Everything starts with a conversation.

Yeah, I mean, but it's their statistics are still out there and they're still devastating, and you know I have lost uh yea, yeah, well yeah, yeah, I definitely have lost friends.

Like I can't imagine what would be losing like a son or a daughter, or.

The pain pain that causes because some you know, and you've there's a lot of other examples.

I think you were signing signing an autograph the kids after a stay of origin Blake and some knuckleheads run up and punch in the back of the head and run off, and.

Yeah, yeah, there was an incident at Saint George.

Yeah, at halftime, go Rich and I think we were getting beaten at the time.

At the time, we were a couple of points down and as we were walking off He just kind of reached over and said saying, I overreacted because I jumped.

Yeah, and it's just ugly, you know, like it's just I get it, like you know, like you're talking about I never forget there was a state of origin, and like it's funny.

I think it's funny.

But just getting into the showers and one of the other players made it very obvious that he was uncomfortable with like, and I was just like, make day flatter yourself.

Trust me, You're safe, you know, trust me.

I couldn't be that fucking drunk, you know what I mean.

You know what I mean.

And that's what I mean about making it about God.

You find the humor in it somewhere, because even he started laughing, just like.

I know, I understand.

And the irony of the situation you found yourself in.

You were in a culture that would have been out of all the cultures you could find yourself in, that would have been one that really struggled.

But also in the end, when people accepted an embrace, it brings the team closer together.

I mean, I mean that you would have had people wanting, but.

It just brings the team together to could you know Blake's like like Steve Menzies and Terry Hill and Jeff two like they were.

They were so fantastic, embracing and jack girls like they were.

It was wonderful.

But it was I would say mostly a younger the generation younger than me, I felt saying to him, maybe because I was an older player, maybe you know, maybe I had Maybe that's what it was, but I did.

I did feel it from a younger.

Yeah, they it was.

It was very interesting.

Well, the other thing is I keep saying, is like, forget the whole gay thing.

Like I'm going to sound like a dickhead now, but I was playing good footing, you know what I mean.

That's that's that's what this was all about.

Like I was playing good football, and that's what I'm about.

George said, George.

I don't know, like when, yeah, when that's all said and done, that that that was the issue.

But look, even when even when you came out, there was people that wanted you to be on the soap box a whole time.

And it's a personal thing, I would imagine, and some like gay journalists or whatever, why aren't you speaking out more?

And you could sound like you couldn't win.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Well, yes, yes and no, I mean like yeah, like and I got to be honest, I still say like it I never felt.

I don't know how like as I've gotten old, I've learned, you know, like I'm because I'm so grateful that I was born gay, Like you know, I've become a bit like a bit of a super power for me, like the fact that I'm just I don't even know what that means, but I just feel like it's so enough.

It's so it's not my mum and dad.

But now you know, when they learned to embrace it, they became better for it.

You know, I said a bit earlier about people like Johnny Lewis, like you know, I'm a better person for knowing Johnny.

You know, like that type of thing.

You get what I mean, And that's what I meant about.

You asked me what type of person I would hope that like people just get to look.

Well, I think if you're you've walked that path, so you understand and the pain of discrimination or anything that where people are ostercized for the things, the damage that can be done.

And the damage that is done.

Man, I mean, you know, like there had been some situations have been really ugly.

Well, you haven't touched on any of that stuff.

We're going to touch on it in part two and what happened with young Aaron and the impact that had on you.

But there was that at the time where you were coming out and you you were the like I'm saying from a member of the public, you were the you were the poster boy of rugby league.

And then when you came out it was big news.

Everyone everyone knew knew about it.

But that was also when aids And.

Then I've been blessed mate that I didn't pick up the HIV.

Yes, like I had my first two partners both passed away with h But I've you know, I was quite promiscuous.

That's not promiscuous.

I was quite in the early eighties.

It was on Oxford straight.

But there was a lot of hate put on the Gaze because because of that, the misconception whether that's where the disease generated from or whatever, But it was all caught up in that time, the time and place.

It was a.

Difficult the whole bowling ball, the grim.

Yeah, it was.

It was a hard time.

And then there was also misconceptions on your gay pedophiles.

That that's another thing that plays into it.

So yeah, it was a tough period of time you went through.

But yeah, but you know, I'm I'm great, and yeah it sounds weird looking back now I can so I'm grateful.

I'm grateful.

Yeah.

Well, well we'll come back in part two.

And look, I say up front that it's going it's hard because I know it's had an impact.

And you know, we sit here with like I Catch Killers, a crime podcast, but this is where crime touched you very personally, when young Aaron light was was murdered, and we'll talk about that, talk about a period of time that you described as the most content period of time when you left football and you're in Nider doing the acting of training to become an actor and all the other things you're doing.

So if we'll take a break and we'll be back shortly