Former England defender Sol Campbell says he was racially abused at Sixfields

As part of a discussion with Welling United head coach Mahrez Bettache for a programme called The Gap: Racism In Football for Sportbible on Instagram, Campbell was asked to speak about any occasion when he experienced racism in the game.

Campbell was part of the Spurs team that beat the Cobblers in a League Cup tie at Sixfields in October, 1998, scoring the second goal in a 3-1 win for the north Londoners.

The Tottenham team that night also included Colin Calderwood and Justin Edinburgh, who would both go on to manage Town.

The central defender, who went on to play for Arsenal and Portsmouth and win 73 caps for England, was 24 at the time and says supporters racially abused him as he went for a drink of water behind the goal at the north stand end of the ground.

After recalling a time when he was abused by opposition players in a Spurs friendly match against Italian club Lazio, Campbell said: "The worst one I have had is when I was at Tottenham and I played in a cup game against Northampton.

"There was a little bit of a lull in the game and there was a break and I remember going to the back of the goal and taking a drink, and the whole backstand there (it) was just completely monkey chants.

Bettache then asked, 'how did you feel at that moment?', and Campbell replied : "I felt like 'what is this?'.

Bettache enquired if any action was taken at the time, and Campbell said: "No.

"I am sure there is worst things that have happened to human beings, but for me as a sportsman that's unacceptable.

"It's not sport any more when you start saying those kind of things, it is not sport."

Campbell, who returned to the PTS in April, 2019 when he was manager of Macclesfield Town, was then asked how he dealt with what happened, and if he had spoken to anybody about it.

"No, no-one backed me up, like back in the days that was normal," he said. "It was 20-odd years ago so no-one said anything.

"We won the game, and the next week we move on."