Racists are so fickle in their abuse, says Davies

DERBY County captain Curtis Davies has been discussing the issue of racism in football.

The 33-year-old said he had never experienced racism personally in this country but spoke about the “fickle” nature of supporters who hurl that abuse at black players.

Raheem Sterling was allegedly the victim of racist abuse during Manchester City’s defeat at Chelsea on Saturday.

Chelsea have since suspended four people from attending matches while an investigation into the incident takes place.

That happened in the same week a banana skin was thrown at Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during the North London derby and Scott Sinclair had a racist chant aimed at him during Celtic’s League Cup final win over Aberdeen.

“My personal experience is that I have never experienced it in this country by fans, so I can only go by that,” said Davies.

“People have it in the back of their mind and with the alleged offender from Chelsea at the weekend, the first thing that came to his head was to try to hurt Raheem Sterling.

“But this is the same guy who would have been jumping up and down like a madman and lauding (N’Golo) Kante when he scored his goal, so this is the fickle side of it.

“It’s not that people are going in big gangs saying ‘We are going to pick on this player and be racist’ - like they used to - but it’s become a thing where an individual lets down a group.

“Luckily, now fans are speaking out and are able to identify them and obviously are trying to get them banned.

“After watching Ian Wright’s documentary (Out of Their Skin) last week and feeling quite grateful for what those players went through back in the day to allow us to walk on the pitch as equals in the modern day, it’s a shame that in the same week we’ve had these incidents.

“I haven’t personally experienced it, but when I go to games you get your abuse from fans but you accept that. Racism is a totally different level to any sort of abuse you can get, which can’t really just be swallowed.”