Our Walkers
Tim Nelson
When Tim Nelson formed Cub Sport in 2010, he saw the band as a conduit for his creativity. "I loved singing and writing music, so I was just pursuing the thing that brings me the most joy" says Nelson, who hails from Brisbane. However, as the indie-pop group gained momentum and Tim's songwriting grew more sophisticated, he realised that Cub Sport was holding up a mirror to his own life whilst also holding up a mirror to his bandmate, keyboard player Sam Netterfield.
"Because I was expressing myself more and more genuinely, I found I was writing about my love for Sam," Tim says. "And he could tell from the songs I was writing that I was in love with him." In a sense, music captured the feelings they were unable to put into words. "That gave Sam the confidence to say he was in love with me," Tim recalls, "and so we finally became a couple." In 2017, shortly before Cub Sport released their second album, Tim and Sam told fans they were a couple. "I feel like our musical journey has really been interwoven with a personal one of coming out and learning to be proud of my queerness, but also connecting with our fans going through similar journeys"
The following year, six months after Australia voted in a referendum to legalise same-sex marriage, Tim and Sam tied the knot. "We were already committed to one another, but it's the little things about being married that make a difference," he says. "Like, when we're travelling now, we can go through immigration together as a family, which makes me feel so proud." The authenticity of their journey has really resonated with the band’s community of fans.
"We've had some amazing messages of gratitude, including from people who've said that our music has literally saved their lives," Tim says. "That definitely makes me feel like I'm on the right track." Tim readily admits he never expected to feel this way. "Being gay was the thing I was most ashamed of. I didn't think I'd come out ever," he says. Much of this shame stemmed from his strict religious upbringing and high school years rife with homophobia.
I remember when I first came out, I had this sense of 'wow, everything is easy now’. But since then, I’ve had a bit of a reality check and realised the journey to self-acceptance isn't linear. But that’s a universal thing – we're always working and growing as people – and you can definitely hear that in our music.
As part of our ongoing partnership with the AFLW, and in tribute to the trailblazers of women’s football in Australia, we created five unique pairs of football boots, hand-crafted from the boots these legends walked in all those years ago. We’re gifting these to trailblazers of the modern game as a symbol of the many generations of progress, hoping they might one day hand them down to the next generation, whilst inspiring them to continue pushing the game forward.