Football

When I was growing up in working class Glasgow 50 years ago, one of the ways people hoped to do well was through sport. Usually the sport in question was for boys and the route to success was football or boxing. Mainly football.

Most of us knew a young guy who had been 'spotted' by a professional football team. The boy round the corner from us in Pollok was picked up by Glasgow Rangers and did a few years in their youth team. He didn't make the grade as a senior but the club arranged for him to do an apprenticeship as an accountant and he had a successful professional life from then on. The message we all got was: whether you make the grade as a player or not, you'll be looked after by football.

Now it appears that wasn't the case. Sexual abuse was obviously rife in football clubs. Nothing to do with Glasgow Rangers, any of this. But clearly a problem in many clubs.

There was a time that my father and grandfather talked about when professional footballers were treated with contempt. When Scottish team members travelled, they went third class while the 'gentlemen' of the SFA went first class. But by the 60s and 70s, football was in the hands of working class managers, coaches and physios. They are the people who either carried out the abuse or turned a blind eye to what was going on. It's the ultimate betrayal, in my opinion.

I can't bear the thought - and I'm sure there's much more to come out - that the sexual abuse of young boys is football's dirty little secret.

Why do paedophiles do it? Because they can. And because they have - until now - got away with it. By telling the kids they have attacked that they are in some way guilty of something. By threatening the kids and their families. By telling the boys that they controlled their career in football, which was true.

I take my hat off to the footballers who have - so far - made their abuse public. It can't be easy. it doesn't look easy on the TV screen. But they are doing the right thing and saving other young men years of exploitation and degradation. I wish them well, and I hope the other young men now hiding awful secrets of abuse can take courage from these men and denounce their attackers. The only hope is this:

Let in the light.