Bristol City fan avoids Football Banning Order despite pleading guilty to shouting ‘You’re all p***s’ at Wolves supporters

A Bristol City fan has avoided a Football Banning Order despite pleading guilty to repeatedly chanting “you’re all p***s” at Wolverhampton Wanderers during their FA Cup fifth round match in February.

Matthew Leggett, 27, from Midsomer Norton, appeared at Bristol Magistrates’ Court on Friday and plead guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence during Wolves’ 1-0 victory on 17 February.

The court heard a family, which included two children, reported hearing racist abuse from a few rows behind them in the Dolman Stand, while another fan reported hearing the offensive slurs four or five times.

Kate Burnham-Davies, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), told magistrates that the father of the family, Michael Canney said that he heard a man repeatedly shouting: "You're all p***s, you're all p***s."

When Mr Canney approached Leggett to ask him to stop or be reported to a steward, Leggett responded: "Your kids shouldn't be here, this is our stand. You should be sitting over there. It's the same as them calling us Welsh. I'm not racist."

Leggett was then removed from his seat and taken to an operational support unit located at the Ashton Gate Stadium. While being interviewed, he defended his actions by saying he was talking about “foreign people” and did not mean to offend anyone.

But on Friday he avoided a Football Banning Order that would prevent him from attending any football match in the country, with magistrates deciding that it was unlikely that he will reoffend at another match.

Leggett was fined £325 and ordered to pay costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £30, though Bristol City – the club that he has supported since he was 11 years old – have confirmed that measures are being taken to ban him from Ashton Gate for life.

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Magistrate Craig Pocock said in passing down his sentence: "As you know, this has no place in football or indeed in society.

"We've taken into account your mitigation and read your letter and we're not going to make the order on this occasion because we do not feel there is any likelihood of recurrence.

"Any repetition of any bad language at a football match and you will be back."

In a statement given to the Bristol Post, Bristol City said: “We are surprised and disappointed by the court’s decision not to issue a full stadium banning order.

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"Ashton Gate has a zero tolerance of this kind of behaviour and the supporter was immediately suspended from our stadium whilst the judicial process ran its course.

"A formal banning process from Ashton Gate is now underway and the supporter remains suspended until that takes effect.”

The incident comes in the same week that black players in the England squad, including Tottenham Hotspur’s Danny Rose and Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling, were racially abused by Montenegro fans during Monday night’s Euro 2020 qualifier, which triggered a large outcry for football authorities to tackle the constant problem of racial abuse in football.