With a largely unremarkable playing career behind him, footballer Marcus Urban would never claim to be headline news. Fitting, then, that his return to the public eye earlier this year should come only as a footnote to a more sensational, if dispiriting narrative. The furore in Germany surrounding the sexuality of the national team, stoked by the homophobic comments of Michael Ballack’s agent, Michael Becker, drew response from a number of prominent heterosexuals in the game. What it also did was remind us in passing that Germany and indeed the world already has an out gay footballer. Becker’s unseemly swipe had inadvertently shone a light on the real story.
He may now be 39 years old. It’s true, he left the game some years back. Marcus Urban, however, is vital to football’s journey away from homophobia. He is the retired player speaking out, the missing link between Justin Fashanu and a current star coming out tomorrow. He lives in Hamburg, Germany and decided to start talking three years ago. He’s now agreed to talk to Tackle.
As a youngster, Urban would dream of two things: football and men. Finding it impossible to pursue both, he sacrificed the latter to focus on the former. At seven years old he fell for the game and was instantly conflicted by similarly new exotic feelings elsewhere; “I particularly remember a situation in my infancy, feeling drawn to a man playing ball games on the beach. My homosexuality was there from the beginning”, he remembers.
At the age of 19 he joined East German club, FC Rott-Weis Erfurt, quickly carving out a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense midfield general. Sporting the same red and white colours as Fashanu had a decade before through a torrid spell at Nottingham Forest, Urban found himself cast adrift in an equally homophobic workplace. Crucially, in a pre-internet age, the former’s public coming out in the UK would pass him by. He would only learn the full story some years later, “I was very surprised that a player dared to come out back then,” he says, “His dramatic story has both impressed and saddened me”.
Where Fashanu had encountered open hostility, Urban was met with bemusement and denial. Indeed, he’d briefly “outed” himself to a teammate as a 16 year old expecting the worst, only for the subject to be completely ignored. It’s an approach that’s been adopted by football clubs, players and authorities around the world ever since.
Stifled by the conservatism of football, Urban would soon be grateful for the socio-political changes brought about by re-unification. Initially though, he was unmoved, “I sat in front of the radio and thought: ‘Well, the wall is falling’. I obviously didn’t have the desire for freedom. I was so busy with myself and football.” Later, he would reap the benefits, “I enjoyed the first trips and new opportunities,” he says, “It was exciting, beautiful but scary at the same time. Everything changed furiously. I felt overwhelmed by the environment, the new social system and myself. I did not know what to do with my freedom, which in hindsight was so important for my development”
The price of liberty was the loss of his boyhood dream: lifting the world cup for East Germany. He would have to watch from afar as the West Germans triumphed in 1990, still the last time a German side brought home the trophy. The memory brings mixed emotions for Urban now. “I was happy and proud as a football player in Germany but at that time they did not play the joyful football of 2010. The world cup was in Italy though, which would later become my second home. I still remember the song of Gianna Nannini ‘Un Estate Italiana.”
By this time Rott-Weis were a team on the up looking to finally escape lower league ignominy by crashing football’s own re-unification party. Promotion in the 1990/91 would ensure entry to an historic first ever all-German second tier the following season. Sharing the stage with future internationals such as Bernd Schnieder and Thomas Linke throughout that campaign, Urban already had his eyes on the prize when he was struck down by injury. It was bad. Neither player nor club would fully recover.
Sneaking to the promised land through a third place finish, it was left to Linke to galvanize Rott Weis the following season but they struggled to cope with their elevated surroundings. Relegation followed. Urban’s tightly forged links with the game, established as a child and strengthened through joining soccer boarding school at the age of 13, began to unwind, his devotion being tested for the first time. Having long held the belief that you couldn’t be a footballer and be gay, injury had freed him from having to make a decision.
Has he changed his mind now? “Yes I think its possible, who knows when someone will come out? It could be tomorrow or two years. Where? Most likely Europe.” What’s stopping them in 2010? He explains, “The players are afraid of discrimination by fellow players and opponents, of expulsion from the team. Will foreign clubs still make offers for them? Will sponsors terminate agreements? Will fans abuse me? The fear is still real.”
These fears were only too real for Urban twenty years ago and unable to balance who he was with what he did, he opted to study urban and regional planning at the Bauhaus university in Weimar. His decision would soon be vindicated when in 1993 he decided to take a semester abroad in Naples, getting a taste for the local food, visiting Maradona’s house and falling in love. Not, it should be said with Maradona (although who could resist those mid 90s drug-crazed come to bed eyes?). A pivotal period for Urban, he returned to Germany ready to front up.
On March 10th 1994 the ripples of re-unification finally reached a legislative level with the age of consent lowered and equality achieved for the first time. No matter that they’d re-structured Division 2 before reviewing Section 175, it proved timely in that Urban was able to come out to family and friends with new confidence. He describes the sensation as great weight falling off him. Football was out of his life.
That could have been the last the German game heard of Marcus Urban. Yet, after hosting the world cup in 2006, the national press were buzzing with rumour and intrigue, “It was then that journalists here raised the question of gay footballers. They’d found a taboo that’s time had come. The media and social changes had set the date, not me. I only said, OK, I’ll tell my story,” he explains.
That story, kept hidden for so long, became a book within a year and now looks set for the big screen, Urban reveals, “There is a very exciting treatment already. The film production house in Berlin is in talks with another production house. I cannot say any more now but will when the time comes.”
One world cup on and speculation still surrounds the national side. Where does he think Becker’s comments came from? “He wanted to use the image of being gay as something strange. It showed something about his view of life," he argues, "Its hard to say what he actually knows, because he was never that concrete about what he said.” It’s a delicate area to probe but I cant help wondering if Urban knows more himself? He's open on the matter, “Yes, there are homo or bi-sexual players like everywhere in life. I have no personal contact with them, just knowledge of it. But they have to say it themselves, all we can do is improve the conditions for diversity in football.”
It must be a lonely place, being the only name out gay footballer in the world. There aren’t many of you out there? “At first it made me a little scared,” he admits. “Now that’s outweighed by the pride and joy when speaking to others. I’ve learned it’s more courageous to be yourself even if it is sometimes difficult. There are already many gay footballers out there, I hope soon they are joined by the professional leagues too.”
He misses the game at the highest level but continues to play in his free time. He wants to be an ambassador for diversity in the game. Of footballs ability to battle homophobia in society he is in little doubt, “Oh yes, because football offers the possibility to integrate. In my team in Hamburg we have homo and heterosexuals, Europeans, Asians, bricklayers, professors and so on. The diversity is the reality.” It seems certain his second career in football will prove more fruitful than his first, “The ball does not care who’s playing with him”, says Urban, “He just wants to roll.”
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