Edmond Austin Huskisson OBE JP

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Edmond Austin Huskisson OBE JP  (1985 – ), is a former Premier League footballer, LGBT activist, and magistrate.

Life
Edmond Huskisson was born in Illingworth – and born a natural sportsman. As a schoolboy, he was besought to play cricket and rugby; but football was from the first his first and most jealous love. Naturally clever (and mischievous) alike on and off the pitch, he threw himself with steely determination and single-minded ambition into The Beautiful Game from an early age, even to the extent of renouncing other interests, and academic interests not least. Signed as a schoolboy to Halifax Town AFC, he was soon picked up by Leeds United for development: largely, it was thought, through the percipience of Neil Redfearn, who was himself to follow the same trajectory as a manager. ‘Huzza’ rapidly established himself as ‘the thinking man’s striker’, an accolade which remained wholly his throughout his career. That career, in the time of Leeds Utd's doldrums, took him first to Hull FC, and then, on the cusp of certain stardom, to Manchester City.

Man City, the first Premier League club to be designated ‘gay-friendly’ by Stonewall UK, soon found occasion to back its new addition, when Huzza was outed on the morning of the city derby. He was sent on in the second half.

Sadly, in a scandal which had lasting consequences, ‘the thinking man’s striker’ was carried off shortly thereafter, having been laid out by a blatant foul and, whilst down, showered not only with abuse but with objects from the Man Utd terraces: for which that club and its supporters have in every sense paid dear ever since. This, regrettably, did not alter the fact that Edmond Huskisson, rendered legally blind in one eye amongst lesser and less permanent injuries, was never again able to play football professionally.

He moved to rural Wiltshire immediately thereafter, taking a small country house, ‘Chalkhills’, in the Woolfonts. After a period of internal struggle, during which he drank heavily, he turned his life around and in a new direction, with the help of AA, neighbours such as the Duke of Taunton, and the new interest in his life, the celebrity chef Teddy Gates, proprietor of the award-winning The Woolford House Hotel nearby. Huzza could no longer, perhaps, be ‘the thinking man’s striker’, but he was now free to be a thinking man: he earnt his BA (Hons) through the Open University and threw himself into charitable and advocacy endeavours, which continue to this day with the assistance and support of Teddy Gates, now his husband.

He now serves on numerous boards and committees dedicated to overcoming discrimination in sport; is a Governor of the Beechbourne Free School, at which he acts as a part-time adjunct games master; and is involved in numerous local charities and community projects, including as a Member of the Board of Governors, the Agincourt Housing Association Trust. He was created MBE for services to sport and the community, and raised OBE in the Birthday Honours of the year just past for further such services.

Family
Edmond Huskisson was raised by his mother, Nora (Gaukroger) Huskisson, now Mrs VV Standeven, a tough-minded and very senior nurse-widwife. He has several half-siblings, ranging in age from 37 to 11 years in age.

He is married to Cllr Teddy Gates OBE JP. They have adopted two sons, Pip and AJ – the elder of whom, Pip, is Edmond Huskisson’s natural son by the late novelist Susan Allred, who had not revealed the lad’s parentage until a few days before her death of cancer, Mr Huskisson having been left unaware of the existence of his son –, and two daughters, Olivia and Sophia, who are biological sisters.

Career

 * Halifax Town
 * Leeds Utd
 * Manchester City

Controversies
Edmond Huskisson’s career as an activist has been a contentious one, his manner being found abrasive even by those who share his views. Friends though they remain, he and Sher Mirza have quarrelled often in the past over Edmond Huskisson’s uncompromising belief that there is a moral duty to come out and to engage in activism. His Grace, naturally, who shares effectively no views with Mr Huskisson, has had memorable shouting matches with him on every issue imaginable.

It was a nine days’ scandal as well when the rural novelist Susan Allred, dying of pancreatic cancer, revealed that her son was Edmond’s, the result of a drunken encounter ten years prior, and the only occasion on which Edmond had ever in fact slept with a woman; but this passed swiftly, and was regarded by Teddy Gates in any case as a happy accident, as it gave them a son who was Edmond’s own, biologically.

Edmond Huskisson’s involvement with the charity and ginger group, Queering the Pitch, has also been controversial in some quarters, owing to his rather confrontational style.

The ducal finagling which resulted in Edmond Huskisson’s being recruited to the Bench as a local JP also aroused early opposition; however, the result has been generally approved, and the Duke has been credited with his usual Machiavellianism as a result.

Discography
(as countertenor, The Fonts) (see article, The Fonts)