‘He was too shocked to talk,” Sotirios Siminas says as he remembers trying to find out why one of his players was in tears at the end of a game that exposed the extent of the racism infecting the heart and soul of English football. Siminas, who coaches one of the under-12 boys’ teams at AFC Urmston Meadowside, in Manchester, can feel the anger rising. Six months on from that unpleasant Sunday morning, it is not easy listening to him explain what had happened to one of the children in his care. “The other boys told us that he was subjected to vile abuse by the opposition players,” Siminas says. “He was called a Paki on their way off the pitch.” The racial abuse was too much for Siminas to bear. He went over to talk to the other team’s coach and defend his player. Yet the response shocked him. The other coach refused to accept there had been any abuse. All he could do was walk away and go home. “Because there were kids involved we didn’t want it to escalate,” Siminas says. “We left.”
Related: Have you witnessed racism in English football?
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