ANTHONY Cook has spoken about the 'disgusting and unacceptable' racist abuse he suffered at the hands of an away fan on Saturday afternoon.
The Chelmsford City midfielder, who was playing in goal due to an injury to regular custodian Stuart Searle, was targeted by a foul-mouthed Hayes & Yeading supporter shortly before half-time.
Cook, whose parents are from Jamaica but he was born and grew up in England, immediately reported the incident to referee Paul Harris who has now passed the incident on to the Football Association via his post-match report.
"It's the first time that anything like this has happened to me at a football ground," Cook, 23, told the Chronicle.
"I heard one of them shout 'why don't you **** off back to Nigeria' and I lost my head.
"Obviously there's going to be abuse and people are going to say things in the heat of the moment or when they're angry and trying to put someone off. But when you bring someone's race in to it that's too much."
Nobody was ejected from Melbourne Park because security guards failed to pinpoint the perpetrator.
Upon hearing about the abuse from a steward at half-time, Chelmsford City chairman Mansell Wallace walked over to the away supporters, estimated to be only 14 or 15 people, to demand an explanation.
Initially they denied a racist comment had been made before admitting it but they refused to give up the individual responsible.
"They wouldn't say but they did admit a comment had been made. I said: 'Will you please tell me who said it' and they said 'no' so I said if you carry on like that I'll have to evict you all because you're all part of it," said Wallace.
"We put in extra security and that's how we carried on and we put out over the public address system that racist comments are unacceptable.
"I also went to their directors to let them know what had happened."
Although the abuse hasn't been reported to police, Wallace would still like to see the guilty party prosecuted.
He said: "Racist language is not said in the heat of the moment, it's premeditated and that person is trying to upset somebody by saying something racist and the law of the land says that a racist comment is illegal and they should be prosecuted."
And Cook is eager too for the authorities to take action.
"I think something should happen," he said. "This shouldn't be happening now, it's just one idiot who should be pinpointed and punished accordingly.
"If players do something they get punished why shouldn't the fans? It's up to the FA what they do but they should have procedures in order when situations like this happen."
The FA has written to City for an explanation of what happened and to see what measures they'll take to prevent it in future.
Hayes & Yeading failed to respond in time for our print deadline.
