PICKERING Town officials have been praised for the “efficient and professional way” they handled an incident of alleged racial abuse.

An individual was ejected from the Recreation Ground during Pickering’s league match with Frickley Athletic, whose players were the supposed targets.

The incident occurred early in the game, shortly after Frickley had taken a 1-0 lead from a penalty.

A spokesman from Frickley Athletic said: “Obviously, it’s very disappointing. Thankfully incidents like this are becoming more and more isolated but unfortunately we have been unlucky enough some of our players were on the wrong end of it.

“We have done well to weed out incidents like this, and they are now few and far between, but one is too many. The guys at Pickering handled the situation in an extremely efficient and professional way and we thank them for that. We’re just going to move on, but if something is going to be done with the individual, clearly we would be supportive of that because there is no space – not only in football, but in any walk of life – for racism.

“We need to show, as a football club and a community, that it won’t be tolerated, and Pickering showed that on Saturday.

“The guys weren’t happy about it at the time but they are the type of human beings that recognise that these incidents come from people who don’t share the same values as 99 per cent of the population.

“They were not happy, but the main thing is that Pickering and the referee dealt with it. As a football club, we stand behind them, we move on and hopefully we won’t have to deal with it again.”

Frickley did not wish to name the players involved.

Pickering Town say they are aware of the incident but do not wish to comment at this time.