He Played Footy For 20 Years And Never Told A Soul He Was Gay, Until…
Samuel Roberts spent two decades playing Australian Rules football. He also spent most of that time hiding who he was. Now, the cabaret comedian has turned that experience into FAAG: Footballers Are A Godsend, and it is playing at the 2026 Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) from 26 March to 6 April at the Grouse venue.
How Mitch Brown changed everything
Roberts first created FAAG for the 2022 Melbourne Fringe. Back then, no male AFL player, past or present, had ever publicly come out. The original show leaned heavily into that isolation, casting Roberts as a victim of football’s hyper-masculine culture.
Then, in August 2025, former West Coast Eagles player Mitch Brown came out as bisexual, becoming the first male player in the AFL’s 129-year history to do so. Roberts wrote in a piece for QNews at the time that he had spent 33 years believing he was alone in that experience, and suddenly he was not.
That shift forced Roberts to rethink the entire show. The original version, he told QNews, focused on his distaste for the sport and the homophobia he experienced growing up. But it ignored something obvious. He had played for more than 20 years. If everything about footy culture pushed him away, why did he keep coming back?
From victim story to love letter
The reworked FAAG ran at the Adelaide Fringe and Midsumma Festival earlier this year. Both seasons drew different crowds with different responses. At Midsumma, the audience skewed young and openly queer. In Adelaide, older men who had stayed closeted through their own football careers approached Roberts afterwards with their own stories.
Brown himself attended the Midsumma season and hugged Roberts onstage after the performance.
Roberts says the new version is no longer about being a victim. It is, as he puts it, “a love letter to the game.” It acknowledges the homophobia and hypermasculinity still present at all levels of the AFL (Australian Football League), while also recognising what football clubs gave him: mates, routine, a sense of belonging for a young country kid.
The AFL’s queer reckoning
The show arrives at a time when the AFL’s relationship with its LGBTQIA+ community is shifting fast. Along with Brown’s coming out, the 2025 season saw multiple players suspended for homophobic slurs, including Adelaide Crows player Izak Rankine. Roberts has cited that incident as a key reason for reviving the show.
At the same time, advocacy from figures like Jason Ball, who launched the AFL Pride Cup movement in 2014 after coming out as the first openly gay male footballer at any level, and the late Matt Hall, who fought HIV-related discrimination in football until his death in 2023, has helped push the conversation forward. The AFLW (AFL Women’s League) has also built its competition with inclusion at its core.
Roberts points to the 2025 Collingwood versus Richmond Pride Round match as a personal highlight, calling it his favourite football outing of the year.
What to expect from the show
FAAG: Footballers Are A Godsend blends cabaret, comedy and personal storytelling. It is playing at Grouse as part of the MICF through 6 April. Tickets are available through the MICF website.
For anyone who has ever loved a sport that did not always love them back, this one will hit close to home.
