A tragic story.
Football fans of a certain vintage will be familiar with the name Justin Fashanu, the first openly gay professional footballer, who died by suicide at the age of 37 in 1998.
The brother of former Wimbledon striker John Fashanu, Justin looked set for a glittering career of his own after scoring the goal of the season with a spectacular effort for Norwich against Liverpool in 1980 and securing a £1 million move to Nottingham Forest in 1981.
Fashanu’s career never quite scaled the same heights after the move, however and after he publicly came out as gay in an interview with The Sun in 1990, he was the subject of a backlash in the football community, even from his brother John, who described him as an “outcast” in an interview at the time.
Justin Fashanu died by suicide in 1998, shortly after a warrant was issued for his arrest after he was accused of sexual assault by a 17-year old boy in the US; Fashanu claimed in his suicide note that the sex was consensual.
Forbidden Games chronicles the story of Fashanu’s life and career, with new interviews and archival footage exploring the circumstances leading up to his death and the personality of an often contradictory and complex character, whose life came to a tragic end almost two decades ago.
It’s available on Netflix from Friday, 1 December.
Clip via Smc trailers
