RACISM in football has reared its ugly and unwelcome head again over the past week and needs to be stamped out just as quickly.

I thought monkey chants and other despicable forms of racial abuse were things of the past and had been eradicated, but there's always one or two that will go over the top as has been the case in Madrid recently. There's a lot of fantastic black players who don't need that.

People should just look at their footballing talent not the colour of their skin. The majority of supporters don't want to hear it either and it's the same as missile-throwers or the idiots who rip up seats - the minority ruin it for the masses.

I understand that the person who abused Dwight Yorke has just been banned for five years and I agree with that because anybody who expresses racial discrimination should be kicked out of football.

Also, I don't know what Birmingham's chairman David Sullivan means when he says Dwight should have warmed up at the other end. What's all that about?

It used to go on all the time in my day. Garth Crooks got the monkey chants and was called a 'black bastard' by people in the crowd when I was a team-mate with him at Stoke.

He was only 17 or 18 at the time so we just advised him to stick the ball in the net, salute his own fans and walk away from it.

That's the way to deal with it to show them up. If you have a go back, you are being dragged down to their level.

Keith Walwyn also used to get it on the odd occasion away from home when I was assistant manager at York City in the 1980s. He used to get a bit upset but he was big enough to brush it aside and he stuck the ball in the net regularly enough to silence them.

There's been talk about whether teams should walk off if their players are being subjected to racial abuse and I think in the case of the England match, which was only a friendly, I would have taken them off. Somebody will have to make a stand if it continues.

I don't know what the repercussions would be if you took a team off in a league game. It's a question of seeing whether anybody would be bold enough to do that and then somebody at the highest level would have an important decision to make.

Do the team that walked off lose the points or are the side with the racist supporters punished? I don't think these people think about their club or country's situation.

I'm sure they want them to develop and reach the World Cup but, if every time they play another national team, they dish out racial abuse, then their matches should be played behind closed doors or their team should have points docked.

You would hope that would stamp it out but then you have an unfortunate problem because it's not the players with racist beliefs, or the majority of supporters, and you would be spoiling it for them.

I can remember getting abused while warming up for Stoke and the only equivalent to racial abuse for a white person in those days was when fans would bring your family into it.

But if you get the kind of abuse Dwight got I would find it hard not to have a go back and I can hold my temper at the worst of times.

The only other time you feel like walking off as a white player is when teams try to kick you off the park but that's football sometimes. Racial abuse and anything against your family is a disgrace but it's better if you can turn a cheek.

At least now black players receive more support from people and groups.

When I was a player there were no "Show Racism the Red Card" campaigns and the lads had to deal with it themselves.

It's not a problem in rugby, tennis or golf. I can't recall any incident when Tiger Woods has had monkey noises directed at him and we must not accept it in football again.

Updated: 09:12 Thursday, November 25, 2004