They were racking their brains on the official Chelsea chat-site on the internet the other night, trying to compose chants of support for Graeme Le Saux in time for Thursday's European game against Valarenga. Last Saturday Le Saux elbowed Liverpool's Robbie Fowler in the back of the head, in an off-the-ball incident, allegedly because Fowler had subjected him to a string of gay taunts during the game. Le Saux told Fowler he was a disgrace and that his gestures and comments had insulted his family. "F*** your family," Fowler is alleged to have, charmingly, replied. Both players were subsequently charged with misconduct by the English Football Association, although young Robbie is reported to be baffled as to why he was charged with anything.
For a brief moment it appeared that the chat-site Chelsea supporters were making an unexpected stand against homophobia, but they weren't.
"Soxy's no poof - he got a wife, inne? And a baby," contributed one. Everyone agreed and, in the end, the jury voted "Graeme Le Saux is a heterosexual" as the chant that should ring around Stamford Bridge on Thursday night. ("And if he ain't slap 'im on the transfer list," was the gist of the follow-up messages.)
By all accounts this is precisely the kind of "support" Le Saux does not want. Pretty much since he first established himself in the Chelsea side, before his spell with Blackburn Rovers, the England international has been treated to weekly chants of "Le Saux is a homosexual" (the rest of the terraces' repertoire is unprintable) for seven reasons: (1) he has a posh accent (2) he has a brain (3) he is articulate (4) he reads the Guardian (5) he collects antiques (6) he visits museums and (7) he is married to an intelligent, Argentinian-born (an offence in itself) woman, who is a sociology graduate.
It's very hard to chant "Le Saux talks posh, is clever, uses big words, doesn't read the Sun, likes old furniture and stuff and places wot keep pictures and isn't married to a Page Three bird", though. It'd be half-time before you'd get to the bit about pictures. So "Le Saux is a homosexual", it would appear, covers all "offences". It's a most peculiar definition of homosexuality - i.e. if they think you're intelligent and love the arts you can't be straight - and makes one wonder if these football supporters (and players) define heterosexuality as the art of being thick.
In the build-up to last summer's World Cup Adidas launched their Predator Accelerator boot in London and invited the press along to have a chat with Le Saux, Marc Overmars, Jurgen Klinsmann, Paul Ince and Paul Gascoigne, all of whom endorsed the product (for a large fee, needless to say).
It was apparent even then that Le Saux didn't quite bond with his England team-mates, Gazza and Incie (another player who is alleged to have had a run-in with Le Saux because he reckons he's a "poof"). Ince and Gascoigne kept to themselves, giggling and sniggering in the corner and generally behaving with less maturity than you'd expect from the inhabitants of a creche. Le Saux, meanwhile, hung out with Klinsmann who, curiously because he's European, is allowed to be intelligent without having his heterosexuality questioned. One can't be sure what Gazza and Incie were whispering to each other about Soxy (i.e. Le Saux), but one guesses that his use of words of more than one syllable, in his conversation with the German, confirmed their suspicions that "he's a puffter, inne?". Le Saux, to his credit, has refused, so far, to give exclusive "I'm a real man, I am - I shagged 12 birds last week" interviews to the tabloids to help ease the homophobic concerns of opposing supporters and players. His friends were this week quoted as saying that he is damned if he is going to give in to the campaign against him by insulting the gay community by denying that "he's one of them".
Aston Villa's Mark Bosnich, Manchester City's Ian Bishop and Leicester's Arnar Gunnlaugsson have all endured the same inanity from opposing fans over recent seasons (Coventry's supporters have been heard to chant "Bosnich is a homosexual" for the entire duration of their derby games against Villa when Bosnich has been playing).
But now that a lot of these supporters know that they will be flung out of football grounds if they racially abuse black players they have to chant something, haven't they? Like Leeds' supporters when their team was losing to Tottenham in an FA Cup replay at White Hart Lane recently. "Spurs are on their way to Belsen, Hitler's going to do it again," they sang, in reference to Spurs' Jewish history.
And when Uwe Rosler became a folk hero at Manchester City a few seasons back United fans gave their neighbours a hard time about worshipping a German, of all things - their chants, during derby games, in Rosler's direction are also entirely unprintable. City responded by printing several thousand T-shirts with "Uwe's Dad Bombed Old Trafford" printed on them - they were worn proudly around Maine Road. United fans were incensed, but they probably asked for it. So if you stand out from the crowd, as Le Saux, blacks, gays, Jews and "foreigners" do, you're a handy target for the chant composers. But if you threw all of them out of the grounds you'd probably end up with Cowdenbeath's average attendance.
You can do something about yobbish players though. Le Saux's no angel - several of his opponents over the seasons have had their heads/legs/backs autographed with his studs and/or imprinted with the mark of his elbow - and he deserves a ban for clattering Fowler in the head. It would be encouraging, though, if the English FA handed out the same ban to Fowler, just to teach the chap to keep his mouth shut in future.
