Graeme Le Saux does not think David Beckham is a homophobe. He knows he is a footballer, though. And the truth is that, in Le Saux’s painful experience, the two walk comfortably hand in hand. A default mechanism, he calls it.

For 14 years of his professional career, pursued by groundless rumours about his sexuality, in the heat of the moment opponents and sometimes teammates would trawl their minds for the most hurtful insult they could hurl at him and, once located, use it without remorse.

Poof. Faggot. Queer. Le Saux is an expert on the colourful excesses of homophobic degradation. Looking back, he says that he endured the spirit-crushing experience of being the first “out” gay man in football, minus the sex. He is not gay; he never was. As he concedes in his autobiography, serialised in The Times next week, he is different, though. And in the reactionary world he inhabited, that was enough.

On Saturday, September 23, 2000, Le Saux was playing for Chelsea against Manchester United at Old Trafford. In the 22nd minute, he jumped for a ball and caught Beckham’s head with his elbow, cutting it and drawing blood, as shown on our back page.

Le Saux’s recollection that Beckham then called him a “poof” is in itself unexceptional. He says that he could eat up two pages of his book with the names of players that spewed homophobic abuse in his direction. Indeed, having originally included the anecdote about his confrontation with Beckham in the first draft, he edited the passage, fearing that it would be highlighted, without context.

He felt happier discussing it in an interview, however, when he could make plain that there was no ill-feeling. In Le Saux’s mind, what separated this exchange from the litany of verbal violence that he suffered weekly was the status of his abuser. David Beckham: gay icon. David Beckham: smiling sarong-wearer. David Beckham: friend of Sir Elton John. David Beckham: talking proudly of his pink fan club on his first day in Los Angeles.

If he could not see the wrong, what chance the rest? “That shocked me,” Le Saux says. “Not because I was offended, but because it showed it had become acceptable to abuse me in that way. That this was somebody who is obviously not homophobic makes it even more significant. I’m sure it does not cross David’s mind to talk like that in, say, Elton John’s company, but as a reaction to an incident, I was fair game to be called a poof.

“I could produce endless lists of players who threw a line at me about being gay, or entered into whatever level of homophobic abuse, but with him it made me stop and think, ‘Wow’, even somebody with his understanding doesn’t get it. I’m not pointing the finger at David – I don’t dislike him and I don’t think he has homophobic issues – but what he did says everything about the general culture of acceptance that exists towards homophobia in football.

“I mention specific players in the book, like Robbie Fowler and Paul Ince, because they took their behaviour to another level. Yet what happened that day showed me how far it had gone. In the simple context of a match it was a default mechanism. I caught him with an elbow, genuinely not maliciously, and because he had a shaved head at the time it split open, lots of blood, very dramatic. He thought I had done it on purpose and his immediate reaction was to say, ‘You f***ing poof’ or ‘You bloody poof’. We were England teammates. I didn’t expect that. I know David isn’t homophobic and last thing I’d want is for him to think this is an accusation. It is just the way it was.”

The way it was for Le Saux in the early part of his career was lonely and brutal. He arrived at Chelsea from a close-knit community on Jersey and encountered a world of hard, uncompromising men who had nothing in common with a teammate who dressed and thought like a student.

Once the false rumours started about Le Saux’s sexuality – heightened by, of all things, his choice of newspaper and fondness for antiques and art galleries – the harsh nature of his environment made going to work a living nightmare. He was taunted by crowds at matches, by opponents on the field and teammates in training.

The bullying reached its peak on February 27, 1999, when Robbie Fowler, playing for Liverpool at the time, humiliated him by repeatedly bending over and pointing his backside in his direction during a match at Stamford Bridge. Ultimately, the ordeal proved cathartic.

Before that, Le Saux says that he often felt isolated and on the brink of walking away. “I was losing the will to live and in any other job you would just think ‘stuff this’ and leave,” he says. “I don’t know what made me stay, really, probably the fact that I had this fight, this stubbornness and a real passion for playing football. I took it badly when I wasn’t in the team because, at that moment, there were no positives for me. I had no opportunity to share my problems with anyone. I had no peer group. I didn’t fit in with the first-teamers and hadn’t come through from apprentice. It was a world of one.

“I wasn’t equipped emotionally or through experience to resolve it. Now there would be a psychologist at the club to talk things through. That was the saddest element: the lack of support. When the bullying was going on, nobody ever stood up and said, ‘Lads, this is wrong’. People might say it was only words, but they were not on the end of it, every day. Some wars start with name-calling.”

In an episode of the situation comedy Seinfeld, friends Jerry and George are mistaken for a gay couple by a reporter for the New York University newspaper. When the article is published, Jerry goes to every length to prove his heterosexuality. One of the comic themes developed is the political correctness issue.

Jerry: “I was outed and I wasn’t even in.”

George: “Now everybody is going to think we’re gay.”

Jerry: “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

It is a dilemma Le Saux knows well. “I knew if people thought I was gay it could harm my career,” he says. “Managers might not want to play me, clubs wouldn’t want to buy me, so I felt I should say something. But at the same time I didn’t want gay people to think I was distancing myself because I thought it was wrong. You can get trapped in this pattern of saying, ‘Well, I’ve got gay friends’, but that strays into the area of saying, ‘I can’t be racist because I’ve had three black men to dinner at my house’. If you know the exact number of black men that have been through your door, you’re a racist.

“Even now, every few years I am asked to contribute to the debate because there seems to be a fascination with gay footballers – but it is all about finding a gay footballer and exposing him, and that’s not the point.

“I didn’t go out of my way to stand up for gay rights, but my situation dictated that I did. The way I see it, there are people in the gay community that are going to be football fans and that means there are young people who might be confused about their sexuality. They need support, so when Robbie Fowler attempts to humiliate me in public, all the kids in that position feel pretty s***ty about themselves.

“More than anything in my career, that offended me. What he did was wrong and he has never admitted that. He still talks as if it was a bit of a laugh. I just think there should be someone in his life who says, ‘Robbie, you were out of order.’ ”

- Last night a spokesman for David Beckham said: “This allegation is completely untrue. David would never say such a thing. It’s been seven years since this match that Graeme refers to and he has never mentioned this to David personally or publicly. Given that they have known each other for many years after the event, it’s highly surprising to discover that this matter has now been raised but never before. While we appreciate Graeme has a book to sell, we refute these assertions completely.”

Explore Football

• Premier League

• Football League

• Scotland

• European Football

• International Football

• TheGame

• Live Match Tracker

• The Fink Tank

• Fantasy Football