I lived in the US for roughly 8 years. When I came back I got a temp job working overnight stocking in a supermarket. Most of the people who I worked with were really sound. I was very impressed by the organisation of the work and all the employees I witnessed. The company was one of the biggest in the country. As far as I could see it had spot on policies and did everything the right way.

I think the night manager was a sound bloke. I did however get the vibe that he didn't go home at the end of a shift to female company. It wasn't anything concrete, it was just something about him. Doesn't bother me, none of my business. I did overhear a couple of women speculating if he was that way.

Anyway, one of the senior workers, seemed like a good lad, hard worker, joker, seems like a nice man and someone to turn to if you needed to know something. He's a bit loud and shares his jokes with half the building. He's shouting across to one of his buddies about being a bender or something. It's fairly clear that he's just joking and absolutely no one takes any offence. I simply cannot believe that management weren't fully aware of that kind of joking.

Having lived in the US for so long, I was a little bit shocked by it. I should say this was my first few days, so obviously everything was new. I asked one of the guys about the joking and it difficult because I was asking about the homophobic offence aspect while he was not getting it and just thought it was normal joking and didn't understand how anyone would feel otherwise.

Just thinking back, I'm actually reminded of when I worked in the US as an unloader. I'm reminded of the fact that 75% of the taunting between them was of the homophobic variety. I only worked as an unloader for a couple of months because I hated those guys (they were generally ok, just loud and I'm really not a team player).

When I came back to England I had missed Zak's first homphobic insult, so I missed all the fuss. I was here though for him blowing the kiss.

IMO the reaction to homophobia is a complete and utter twitter and TV scandal that goes on unchecked in the vast majority of manual labour jobs. IMO Zak's a real world working class guy working in a macho, BS talking environment. The only problem with Zak is that his world collides with twitter and the utter liars who run TV. I doubt there's many players who really gave a crap about what he said, they were just glad that they weren't the ones who were caught on TV.

Throughout this thread I've always been very confident in my assessment that Leeds would see this as another none issue and just say one thing to the press and another thing inside the club. It was just my reading of events as I saw it. I know some people on here know I have a good source of info but I've never during his career ever used him to trawl for info. In total honestly I don't have much interest in the lives of the players, I support the 13 on the park and beyond that I'm not that interested.

I checked with my source just to check whether my assessment was right or whether the other people were right.

My source told me I was wrong.

So I hold my hands up and pretty much retract most of my comments on here. It sucks to be wrong. But it really, really sucks when you were really certain about something.

I'm struggling to deal with RL being so strict and harsh to ZH when everyone inside the game knows plenty of legends and Hall of Famers have done things 50 times as bad as Zak and still being accepted. The legend who was in the avatar. I love that guy because of what he did on the field. I know he served time in jail and as far as I'm concerned that's an issue between him, the police and the courts. I don't know the details so I don't judge. I also know some rumours and the only thing I can say about that is that I just hope someone lied. I hope the rumours were completely false. But if the rumours were confirmed right TBH I just don't even want to think about it.

I really think the world is messed up in 2015. People are so massively judgemental over things while the press and politicians are at an all time low. We have made lots of strides over racism, there's TV/twitter steps towards gay rights but the real world is completely different.

I think I need to start heavily drinking or get high because it's pointless thinking about things.

So what's the current state of play then, is Gotcha's version of events accurate?

I wasn't trawling for info. I was asking if I was right or wrong.

My source said I was wrong.

I don't like being wrong. I didn't have to make the post I did. But I felt that having been so arrogantly dismissive of how serious the club were treating it I felt I had to make a retraction.

This is the story that I’ve heard from an unusual but what I would consider reliable source.

Hardaker and Minchella end up at some student digs after a night out on the lash. They are with a group of other students who want to carry on the party, so to speak.

A student in a neighbouring apartment gets the hump with the rowdiness and kicks off with Hardaker, not knowing who he was. Hardaker/ Minchella (not fully known who) puts him on his arris, end of story.

This guy then later finds out the Hardaker is a pro Rugby player a few days later and approaches the club about the incident, presumably for a bit of compo. The club then take statements from Hardaker and Minchella, decide that there’s nowt in it and refer the matter to the Police, who also investigate the incident and also decide that no charges should be brought.

Hardaker is clearly stupid, the student clearly deserved it, the outcome was inevitable.