Celebrating Pride Month 2023 is Millwall Romans player, Andy Dolan, who has provided an insight on why this celebration is so important to him and many others.
Pride Month is a month-long celebration that recognizes the LGBTQ+ community and their contributions to society. The club is proud to support Millwall Romans to help break down barriers for more people from the LGBT community to enjoy football.
We asked Andy six questions and here are his answers:
How long have you been with the Millwall Romans?
I've been at Romans 10 years now! Long in the tooth.
This month being Pride Month, what does the month mean to you?
I always find Pride Month really affirming, which is important. A lot of LGBT people grow up with this sort of sense of shame about their sexuality, and even though you figure things out as you get older, because that happened in your formative years it's always lurking there in the background. Being surrounded by everyone saying the opposite and being positive for a few weeks is a good reminder to put the past behind me.
How much work has been done in this area and what further work needs to be done, do you feel?
In terms of social progress there have obviously been massive strides in Western society in the last couple of generations. But we know there are LGBT people all over the world and many places it's not safe to be out. There's a lot of work to be done to change hearts and minds all over the world.
The Romans were taken in by the MCT a few years ago, how have the club, the MCT and the fans been since the team’s arrival?
MCT, the club, and the fans have made us feel part of the family and we hope we're paying that back. We were born in North London, but we've had lots of new recruits from Southeast the last couple of seasons and got more and more people from the local area involved, which was important for us.
You are currently top of the table, what would it mean to once again win the London Unity League?
Winning the league is obviously a big motivation for a lot of players but I think that National Cup is what they really want!
What’s your hopes for the Millwall Romans going forward?
My big hope is that we get more and more South Londoners involved in the next few years.
