Man City fans should stand together with Man Utd against racism

Every Manchester City fan worth his salt should be standing shoulder to shoulder with Fred and Jesse Lingard today.

Every Manchester City fan who saw or heard anything which crossed the line of derby banter should pick up the phone and report it, either to the club or the police.

And every Manchester City fan should pledge to ensure that never again will a visiting player, or fan, have to put up with being showered with missiles, or subjected to vile abuse, racist or otherwise.

The frustration about a poor City performance, the verbal barbs thrown by cock-a-hoop Manchester United fans, and a defeat which leaves a title challenge in tatters have been reduced to meaninglessness.

The derby is no longer about Red and Blue, it's about coming together to face down racists, as this city has always done – whether it was the fascist leader Oswald Mosley in the Thirties and Fifties, the National Front in the Seventies, or the ugly xenophobia and racism which is rearing its head now, on social media, on our streets and in our football grounds.

What allegedly happened on Saturday has revealed a dark stain on the very soul of the club, one that can only be scrubbed clean by the vast majority of decent fans, no matter what action the club itself takes.

But anyone point-scoring off City, can forget it - that dark stain is also on the soul of our city, and our country.

The club itself has reacted quickly, making it plain that anyone found guilty will be banned for life. That is a good start, but this needs to go further.

Those of us old enough to remember the nastier side of the terraces of the Seventies and Eighties remember City goalkeeper and Manchester lad Alex Williams having to face a burning cross put up by Everton fans.

We remember John Barnes having bananas thrown at him.

And we remember brilliant black players like Cyrille Regis, Laurie Cunningham and Viv Anderson having to put up with warped racism week in, week out.

We thought it was a thing of the past. Football – and society in general – had moved on, we thought. We are now better than that, we thought, wallowing in our enlightenment and tolerance.

But we have slipped backwards again. Gary Neville was right – we have a prime minister, no less, who has come out with racist statements.

When the man holding the highest office in the land can be openly racist and his own party, and much of the electorate, barely bat an eyelid, what is there to restrain the Neanderthal tendency who we thought had been locked in the cellar of our history?

Racism has not just crept back in through the back door, it is rushing through the front door as well.

Banter is at the heart of any derby, and is a brilliant part of our football culture, to be cherished and celebrated – but most of us know the line which cannot be crossed, and there is NO excuse for racism or throwing objects.

Sane, civilised people do not become momentary racists because they have had a few beers, or because they are upset about a bloody football match.

The thoughts of many City fans will have turned to Raheem Sterling, who has stood up to the irrationality and depravity of racism in such an eloquent fashion recently, only to find that some of his own club's fans, if the allegations are proven to be true, are just as bad as that small group of Chelsea morons who abused him, or the group of Bulgaria fans who hurled their idiocy at England players in October.

We were all appalled at those incidents, but there can be no moral judgment when that kind of behaviour is still happening in OUR grounds, and in OUR society.

Some people have, disgracefully, sought to make football capital out of what allegedly happened by re-circulating Sterling's statement that clubs whose fans are found guilty of racial abuse should receive nine-point deductions and play games behind closed doors.

It is difficult to see what they are trying to prove by bringing that up. Sterling would, undoubtedly, stand by his statement and not recoil.

His point was that if such sanctions are publicised, it would act as a deterrent – it is a point that needs to be seriously considered. This issue is far more important than a team's position in a league table. It is infinitely sad that we think the only way of stopping racists spouting their bile is not to show them the crass ignorance of their ways, but to threaten the league position of their favourite football team.

The fact that these incidents are alleged to have happened here, in Manchester, is especially worrying.

The people of this city are proud of our diversity. One local football club displays the banner “We Are All Immigrants”, which is intrinsically true.

Manchester has, for centuries been a melting pot of people coming here to live here and work, from the Flemish weavers of the 14 century to the Jews and the Irish – the latter my own ancestors – who came here in the 19 century and on to the Asian and West Indian influx of the Fifties and Sixties.

For most Mancunians, it's what makes this city so great, from the Curry Mile, to Moss Side, to Cheetham Hill, to Prestwich and beyond.

If you are from here, you are not black or white, gay or straight, Asian or Anglo-Saxon. You are a Mancunian.

City, for a long time based in the heart of the Caribbean community in Moss Side, has long reflected the way we accept and embrace different cultures.

They had a sizeable number of black supporters back in the Seventies and Eighties, when it was a rarity, and when anyone who was not white feared for their safety if they went to a match.

Players like Alex Williams, Clive Wilson, and Jason and Darren Beckford also emerged from Manchester's black community to play for the club and strengthen the bonds that bind us.

So the fact that this allegedly happened at City is especially disturbing, and an even bigger warning sign that this issue needs tackling. If it can happen at City, and in Manchester, it can happen anywhere.

It needs to stop, and we ALL need to stop it.