Graeme Saux - Graeme Le Saux - Left Field

That has happened a few times: where I have confronted people and made eye contact with them. It never worked because there were always so many people around them. They are usually the kind of so-called fans that will scream personal abuse at a player for ninety minutes and then report them to the police if they look at them the wrong way.

There was another time when I stood up for myself, too, a time when I refused to look the other way. I had a family by then and my wife, Mariana, brought our new-born eldest child, Georgina, to her first game at the end of February 1999. It was Liverpool again but this time it wasn’t Paul Ince who was the problem. This time, it was Robbie Fowler.

I had admired Robbie when he was a young player. He was a magnificent finisher, one of the best natural strikers you would ever see. But as people, he and I are probably about as far apart as it’s possible to be. His trademark was his sarcastic, put-down humour. That’s fine, that’s great; if that’s how you play the game – fine. He had an irreverent, caustic attitude. I didn’t mind that but the thing with Robbie was that he didn’t know when to stop. When things became unacceptable, it felt as if he was ignorant of his social responsibilities and the consequences of his actions.

That Chelsea–Liverpool match at Stamford Bridge was a high-tempo game like all the clashes between the two teams seemed to be and there were a few incidents. Early in the second half, I moved to clear the ball from left-back and as I did so, Robbie tried to block it but ended up coming across me and fouling me. I went down and the referee, Paul Durkin, booked him.

Robbie looked down at me. ‘Get up, you poof,’ he said. I stayed on the turf while the physio was treating me and then got up. By then, Robbie was standing ten yards away. The ball was in front of me, ready for the free-kick. I looked at Robbie. He started bending over and pointing his backside in my direction. He looked over his shoulder and started yelling at me. He was smirking. ‘Come and give me one up the arse,’ he said, ‘come and give me one up the arse.’

He said it three or four times. The Chelsea fans, in the benches where the new West Stand is now, were going berserk. The linesman was standing right next to me. He could see what Robbie was doing but he didn’t take any action. He didn’t call Durkin over. Everyone knew exactly what Robbie’s gesture meant. There wasn’t a lot of room for interpretation. I asked the linesman what he was going to do about it. He just stood there with a look of suppressed panic on his face.

So I stood there with the ball, waiting. Robbie could see he was winding me up and I suppose that gave him a great sense of gratification. So he carried on doing it. I told the linesman I wasn’t going to take the free-kick until he stopped. It was a Mexican stand-off. I wish Paul Durkin had found it in him to decide what was going on and then send Robbie off for ungentlemanly conduct.

It was a big moment. What Robbie did provided a chance for people to confront a serious issue. Some people compared it to sledging in cricket but sledging is still essentially private – an exchange or series of exchanges that stay between the players on the pitch. Only the people on the pitch are aware of the insults that are being hurled. That’s where I believe Robbie crossed the line and betrayed the game. When a fellow professional does something like that to you, when he mocks you for public consumption, it adds credibility to unfounded rumours. That is why it upset me so much. I just cannot accept that that is just part of the game. In my football career, I never saw anyone do something like that to another player.

Whatever happens on the pitch should stay on the pitch. There is a huge amount of pressure not to break that omertà. I don’t know where it comes from but it surrounds you. It is self-protecting. If you’re a player and you talk about things that should be kept private because they happened on the field, you risk losing the trust of team-mates and opponents. As soon as you step out of the circle and expose what actually happens, it’s very difficult to get back in.

I felt that what Fowler did – because it was so blatant – allowed me to step out of the circle and hit back at him in whatever way I needed to. He had betrayed me on the pitch. He had broken the code first. I have felt that conflict of interest on a few occasions and until then I had always taken the stick that came my way and laid low until the fuss blew over.

Black players have had plenty of foul abuse aimed at them over the years but no fellow player has ever made a public gesture like that at any one of them. Robbie wouldn’t dream of making gestures to a black player so why did he feel it was acceptable to incite me by sticking out his backside?

I think football had a chance to make a stand there and then against this kind of thing. The game could have made a strong statement that such blatant homophobia would not be tolerated. Durkin would have been feted for that if he had taken a stand and I believe that maybe it would have taken some of the stigma away for gay footballers who are still petrified of being found out. It could have been a turning point.

But football didn’t make a stand. Durkin ran over and booked me for time-wasting. I was dumbfounded. I asked him if he was just going to let Robbie get away with it. He didn’t say anything. He said later that he hadn’t seen what Robbie was doing but I wonder if it was just that he didn’t want to deal with it. No one wanted to deal with it.

My head filled up with anger. I still didn’t want to take the free-kick. Perhaps I should have taken even more of a stand. Perhaps I should just have refused to take the kick and been sent off. That would at least have forced the issue but it would probably have made me a martyr for the cause and I didn’t want that. In that kind of situation, the pressure to play on is overwhelming. The crowd is screaming and baying, the rest of the players are looking at you expectantly, waiting for play to restart. I looked at Robbie again and he had stopped bending over. So I took the free-kick.

I was consumed with the idea of retribution. I wanted vengeance. I kicked the ball as hard as I could. It was like smacking a punchball. I tried to calm down but I couldn’t. There was no way I could get rid of my anger. I ran up to the halfway line and tried to confront Robbie. I told him my family was in the stand. ‘Bollocks to your family,’ he said.

Robbie revealed a slightly different version of the episode in his autobiography – and a different attitude to it. He wrote that after all his insinuations about me being gay, I had run up to him on the pitch and shouted ‘But I’m married’ and that he had replied ‘So was Elton John, mate’. It’s a nice line and it makes Robbie look funny, which is the most important thing to him. But I’m afraid it’s what’s called dramatic licence – he didn’t say it.

I waited for my opportunity. I should have come off really. My head was gone. I wasn’t even concentrating on the game. I felt humiliated. It was an age until the ball came near us again but I was possessed with the idea of getting my own back. In the cold light of day, it sounds inexcusable but I felt as if the anger of so many years of being taunted was welling up inside me.

Eventually, the ball was played down their left-hand side and Robbie made a run towards our box. I came across and ran straight into him with a swing of the elbow. I clattered him as hard as I could but thankfully I’m not very good at that kind of thing. In fact, it was pathetic. Durkin didn’t see it so I didn’t get punished. Thankfully, it didn’t do Robbie any lasting damage. We had a couple more kicking matches and in the end he caught me on the calf and I had to come off. About eight minutes from the end, Vialli brought Eddie Newton on to replace me and the most traumatic match of my career was over.