What’s it like to be gay in grassroots men’s football? With Chew Magna FC’s Callum Hodge

https://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/a2/dd/f9/a2ddf975-808e-70da-b97f-6fd7ee5db543/mza_4393060185693148655.jpg/600x600bb.jpg

Football v Homophobia

56 episodes

6 days ago

The Football v Homophobia podcast brings you all the latest news and updates from the campaign and beyond!

Soccer

Sports

RSS

All content for Football v Homophobia is the property of Football v Homophobia and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

The Football v Homophobia podcast brings you all the latest news and updates from the campaign and beyond!

Soccer

Sports

https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_nologo/3043805/3043805-1683283559808-386bbdbe685ad.jpg

What’s it like to be gay in grassroots men’s football? With Chew Magna FC’s Callum Hodge

Football v Homophobia

33 minutes 20 seconds

3 weeks ago

What’s it like to be gay in grassroots men’s football? With Chew Magna FC’s Callum Hodge

Having scored more than 200 goals for his local club, based in a small village in Somerset, Callum Hodge can say with confidence that he’s made his mark in grassroots football.

Millions of men across the U.K. play at a similar level every week - but Callum’s story is unusual. He came out as gay in his early 20s and has carried on playing into his late 30s. He’s yet to meet another player at this level who’s out as gay or bi to everyone in their county league.

Callum knows that homophobic language is a major reason why the vast majority of gay guys like him remain hidden in football. But with his team, Chew Magna FC - who have been amazing allies - he’s taking action. They recently walked off the pitch in protest due to a discriminatory slur, with the incident now under investigation.

Sadly, it’s not the first time Callum has faced homophobia on the field. Now he wants to help bring about change for the benefit of other LGBTQ players, especially those struggling with their sexuality.

On this episode of the FvH Podcast, he talks to Jon Holmes about the good, the bad and the ugly of grassroots men’s football; why he’s extra proud to be an Aston Villa fan; and shares his coming out story, in support of National Coming Out Day on October 11.

Links..

FA investigates alleged homophobic slur at match (BBC Bristol, 29 Sep 2025) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07v0z5ngzdo

'Alarming' rise in reports of homophobia in grassroots football highlighted by FvH campaign (Sports Media LGBT+, December 2024) - https://sportsmedialgbt.com/grassroots-football-homophobia-anti-gay-lgbtq-discrimination-disciplinary-review

Thank you for listening to the FvH Podcast - please subscribe, rate, review and share on socials.

We're at @football_v_homophobia on Instagram; @FvHtweets on Twitter / X; and you can find us on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn too. Our website is https://www.footballvhomophobia.com/

Me & You by MusicbyAden | https://soundcloud.com/musicbyaden

Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US