The Gay Gooners, occasionally stylised as GayGooners, are the official LGBTQ supporters' group for Arsenal F.C., a British association football club. Formed in February 2013, they are widely recognised as the first LGBTQ supporters' club in English football and the first LGBTQ supporters' group in UK football to march at Pride in London. They have since grown to become the largest such group in England, with more than 2,000 members and allies as of 2025, according to the club. Their Bluesky account states that the group now has over 2,500 members, making them the world's largest LGBTQ+ football fan group.
The group was founded with the aim of fighting homophobia in football, and functions as a social and community space for LGBTQ Arsenal fans to attend matches together and participate in club events. The group works with organisations such as Rainbow Laces and Kick It Out, and have marched at Pride in London since its founding in 2013, having been the first LGBTQ supporters' group in UK football to do so.
The group has campaigned wider on LGBTQ issues, including protesting outside the Qatari embassy in London ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, placing second in the Football v Homophobia Supporters Group Award in 2024, and raising concerns about Arsenal's sponsorship deal with the Rwanda Development Board. The group's name has previously been the subject of internal discussion, with some former members questioning whether it is sufficiently intersectional.
History
According to Arsenal F.C., the Gay Gooners were founded in February 2013. Its origins came from a friendship between two amateur referees who had officiated together at the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association tournaments, Stewart Selby and Dave Raval. From 2010, Selby had represented the LGBTQ+ community onArsenal's Supporters Forum, and by 2012 had secured the backing of then chief executive Ivan Gazidis and communications director Mark Gonnella for an official LGBT+ supporters' group. A short piece in the matchday programme in late 2012 invited LGBT+ supporters to make contact, drawing around thirty responses. On 26 January 2013, Arsenal's internationally televised FA Cup tie away to Brighton & Hove Albion was marred by sustained homophobic chanting. The following month, Arsenal hosted the group in a box at the home FA Cup fixture against Blackburn Rovers on 16 February 2013, a date chosen to coincide with LGBT History Month and which the Gay Gooners regard as their founding. Raval and Zed Lomax became the group's first co-chairs.
Arsenal became the first major English football club to recognise a group of its kind that year. Following this recognition, there was an increase in LGBTQ football fan groups that were officially recognised by their clubs.
The Gay Gooners attended their first Pride in London parade in 2013. There was an apprehension from some members about being identified on television, so Arsenal supplied them with "some caps and a small banner" to represent the club. Their presence as an officially backed football supporters group drew comments from other participants of that parade.
At the beginning of the 2013–14 season, Arsenal became the first football club in Europe to drape a rainbow banner over one of its stadium's hoardings. That season, the club captain Thomas Vermaelen and vice-captain Mikel Arteta wore rainbow laces in the first awareness campaign of its kind in football. In the autumn of 2014, founding co-chair Zed Lomax worked with other football supporter groups to establish Pride in Football, an alliance of LGBT+ football fan groups across England and Scotland. By February 2015, they had 250 members, and Arsenal was allowing the group space in their programme and other official channels to publicise their message. That month, the Gay Gooners played their own version of the north London derby by taking part in a five-a-side match against fellow prominent LGBTQ supporters' association for Tottenham Hotspur, the Proud Lilywhites. The match was officiated by Steffen Freund. In February 2015, club legend Pat Rice unveiled the group's banner on the pitch, and it has been displayed inside the Emirates Stadium ever since.
By 2015, comedian and actor Matt Lucas had become a patron of the Gay Gooners. By April 2017, the group had 500 members, of whom 40 per cent were women. By June 2018, the Gay Gooners had over 650 members, and in March 2019, they had 775 members, of which 40% were women and 10% lived overseas, in some cases in countries where being gay was illegal. Héctor Bellerín, a right-back for Arsenal, spoke with the group over a video call in 2020, noting that he had received homophobic abuse himself. In February 2021, then Arsenal Women player Katie Mccabe described seeing the group's banner during a visit to the Emirates Stadium before she signed for the club as having made her feel immediately accepted, and cited it as a significant factor in her decision to join Arsenal when the opportunity arose. They had around 1,000 members by November 2021. According to Selby, the group had reached almost 1,400 members globally by February 2023.
On 23 February 2024, the group were awarded second place in the Football v Homophobia Supporters Group Award, behind West Bromwich Albion's Proud Baggies. Earlier, on the eve of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Gay Gooners members protested outside the Qatari embassy in London alongside LGBTQ rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, opposing the country's anti-LGBTQ policies. Jen Beattie joined the group for Pride in London 2022. , the Gay Gooners had attended Pride in London since 2013 according to co-chairman Carl Fearn. That year in June, they attended the march on an open-topped Routemaster bus. The Gay Gooners by this point had 1,600 members across 51 countries.
In November 2025 when Arsenal ended an eight-year partnership with the Rwanda Development Board that had included the words "Visit Rwanda" on the team's kit sleeves, the Gay Gooners welcomed the decision, stating that they were "uncomfortable with the deal from the start and made signification representations to Arsenal through official channels since 2021." In a survey of its 2,500-strong membership in July 2025, the Gay Gooners found that only two per cent of respondents wanted the sponsorship renewed, whilst 86 per cent wanted it ended and a replacement found.
The Gay Gooners send a representative team to the annual Arsenal for Everyone tournament at the community hub.
In 2025, the group's visibility within Arsenal's supporter culture was highlighted during Pride in London, where the Gay Gooners marched alongside a specially designed Arsenal Pride float, and were joined by Arsenal W.F.C. captain Kim Little. BRICKS Magazine described the group as playing “a vital role” in fostering belonging among LGBTQIA+ supporters, with co-chair Jacob Jefferson noting that the Gay Gooners banner being displayed at every home game signals that LGBTQ fans “belong here just as much as any other fan”.
Organisation and leadership
The Gay Gooners are run by a volunteer committee. As of 2025, the group's co-chairs include long-standing member Carl Fearn and former campaigns manager Jacob Jefferson, both of whom have represented the group in Arsenal's official LGBTQ+ programming. Fearn has spoken publicly about the importance of visibility and belonging for LGBTQ supporters, including during Arsenal's participation in Pride in London 2024. Jefferson has said that the group made him feel welcome when he joined as a member as a young man, and at a time he had not been open about his sexuality in football settings. Jefferson said the group provided an environment that was free from the homophobic comments that had previously made the sport feel unwelcoming at times. In 2024, the current Gay Gooners co-chairs Carl Fearn and Jacob Jefferson were photographed with Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard during the club's LGBTQ+ inclusion activities.
An oral history project published by London Metropolitan University in 2025 documented the experiences of LGBTQ Arsenal supporters, including Gay Gooners members, and described the group as the “world's biggest LGBTQ+ football fan club”.
The group holds meet-ups near the Emirates Stadium ahead of home fixtures, and organises group travel to away matches and regular social events. Members receive a newsletter that covers forthcoming events and LGBTQ football news. The club invites group members to take part in its inclusion training for staff. More than ten per cent of the membership are allies who are not LGBTQ themselves. Group secretary Angus Moorat was elected to Arsenal's Advisory Board in September 2021.
Campaigning In January 2022, co-chair Carl Fearn heard homophobic chanting in a pub near the Emirates Stadium after a home match against Burnley, and raised it with the club. Arsenal responded by distributing anti-discrimination material to pubs around the Emirates Stadium, and dedicated the following month's home fixture against Brentford to the Gay Gooners group, showing a film featuring members on the stadium screens and allocating an executive box to LGBT+ supporters attending a match for the first time.
In December 2024, ahead of Arsenal's designated Rainbow Laces fixture against Manchester United, co-chair Jacob Jefferson told the Daily Mirror that the group's priority for the campaign was making supporters feel safe in stadiums and making it easier to report abuse without leaving their seat. He noted that allies were an important part of this, since "quite often the reporting comes from non-LGBT people". Jefferson also said that visible player support had become less common than in the campaign's early years, when Arsenal players appeared in some of its first advertising, suggesting that online abuse had made players more reluctant, and that the group's reach depended on the club actively giving it a platform.
Criticism The group's name has drawn internal criticism. Zed Lomax, one of the group's first co-chairs, later left the group, saying the name was not intersectional and excluded parts of the LGBT+ community. Arsenal had also produced the group's original flag, but without consulting members over the wording that they wanted included, which was added to later versions. The question of the group's name, however, was not resolved.
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