Banter and stupidity disastrous bedfellows

“THERE was a word beginning with ‘N’ that some football fans used to shout at people like me. They don’t do it any more.”

So said Ledley King last April in a film by Kick It Out called The Y Word, aimed at ridding football of anti-semitism.

Maybe football had grown complacent. We don’t yet know what Patrice Evra or Anton Ferdinand experienced on the field of play, but the last week has seen a torrent of racist abuse aimed at Ferdinand, Stan Collymore and Sammy Ameobi via Twitter.

Much of it is sheep mentality. But a game that shunned Big Ron as an anachronism will fear it is slipping back into a place it thought had long been left behind.

Not that we need be complacent. It was horrible to hear Ken McCue of Sport against Racism Ireland explain that every single member of the Insaka-Ireland (African youth movement) U17 team has known racial taunting on the Irish Examiner podcast this week.

Of course it’s foremost society’s problem. But the long-standing tolerance of ugly abuse in the name of “banter” has positioned football as an obvious escape valve for stupidity of all kinds. It’s time to kick it out, all of it.