Huddersfield Town and Huddersfield Town Foundation support new EFL Rainbow Football initiative
- English Football League initiative during LGBT History Month
- Terriers Together Ambassador Chris Maxwell meets Yorkshire Terriers player
- Rainbow Ball in use in Saturday’s game against Hull City
To mark LGBT History Month, the English Football League (EFL) have launched their very-first PUMA Rainbow Ball, which will be used in Town’s Sky Bet Championship fixture against Hull City at the John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday 17 February.
The campaign will take place across Sky Bet EFL match days between February 16 and 24 to promote and celebrate the importance of inclusion and representation in football and society.
The Club actively promotes equality and celebrates diversity, and we are proud to help those in our communities who may need further support and representation through our Terriers Together pledge.
As the EFL launched the campaign, we invited Matthew Barton, a player from the Yorkshire Terriers team, down to Millers Oils High Performance Complex to meet Terriers Together Ambassador and goalkeeper Chris Maxwell.
Yorkshire Terriers were one of the first gay-friendly teams to be founded in the United Kingdom back in 1997, and they were a founding member of the GFSN (Gay Football Supporters Network) National League at the start of the 2002/03 season.
Chris and Matthew engaged in a brilliant two-way conversation about the history of Yorkshire Terriers and the representation of LGBTQ+ in football. The pair also spoke about the importance of making sure everyone is welcome at Huddersfield Town through the work of Terriers Together and Proud About Town.
Terriers Together Ambassador Chris Maxwell commented:
“The work that Matt and the guys are doing is creating a real sense of community, where each individual is under no pressure to play football without any anxiety being attached to it.
“As a society, we need to learn from this because the work that they are doing is really inspirational and we need to get to a point where we don’t need to talk about it because football should be an inclusive place for everybody.
“Football is for everybody, and everybody should feel comfortable to come to a football game and be themselves without having the fear of thinking that they can’t or that they’ll be looked at in a different light, so these campaigns that the league do, particularly for this weekend, help to benefit that.”
Matthew Barton, a player from Yorkshire Terriers, added:
“It was a nice change in pace meeting Chris and seeing that professional footballers who are representing the dressing room have no issues with gay players coming out and it was good to hear about the work he and Huddersfield Town are doing within a community setting because it’s important to not lose sight of the issues that are going on in the community and that support is invaluable for the LBGTQ+ community.
“I do appreciate the Rainbow Ball campaign, and I just hope that it is one in a continuous series of events going forward to keep the LGBTQ+ agenda in the forefront of thoughts in the thinking of football clubs.
“The group have been going for over 25 years and it’s a testament to the players that have come and gone that it’s the institution that it is now.
“It’s good to provide an environment where people from any sexuality or gender can come and just play football. We just want to play football and our genders or sexualities shouldn’t be an issue or a barrier, whether that’s at a professional barrier or a community level.”
CLICK HERE to learn more about the work that Yorkshire Terriers do for inclusivity in footbal, and to learn more about our Terriers Together initiative or the Proud About Town group, please email zoe.shackleton@htafc.com for more information.
