Are Newcastle fans racists?

SO Newcastle United fans are all racists now because of a few ill-chosen chants aimed at Middlesbrough's Egyptian striker Mido? I don't think so.

Yes, singing "He's got a bomb" and "He's going to blow" because he's a Muslim isn't big or clever in the current climate of terrorist alerts.

And labelling the £6m signing a "paedo" because it rhymes with his name and fits a 20-year-old stigma attached to the Teesside town isn't funny either.

But in many years of watching football at grounds all over the country, I've heard far, far worse abuse directed at players, without a word of criticism afterwards.

Now I'm not in any way condoning such abuse, I'm just saying it's been part of the game for years, and probably always will be, even in these Sky-sanitised days of the Premiership.

Anyway, isn't it part of a football supporter's brief to do (within the limits of the law and ground regulations obviously) whatever they can to inspire their own team and put off the opposition?

It certainly has been as long as I've been attending matches, from Sunday league level to internationals and cup finals.

I remember seeing Blackburn's David Speedie - a footballer everyone loved to hate, unless he was playing for their team - take fearful abuse, much of it of an extremely personal nature, from 5,000 or so Newcastle fans at Ewood Park a few years ago.

He answered them in the best possible way, by sticking the ball in their team's net three times (though his celebratory leap onto the perimeter fence after completing his hat-trick didn't exactly calm the situation).

And he's by no means alone: ask Dennis Wise, Roy Keane, David Beckham, Alan Shearer and many other players about the stick they've had from opposing fans over the years, and they'll all tell you it's part and parcel of the game.

Remember, too, that there's nothing so fickle as football fans. For years Newcastle supporters chanted abuse at striker Mark Viduka, based on his weight and nationality, and questioning his parentage.

But now he's one of theirs they celebrated his goal at the Riverside on Sunday like the Second Coming, while it was the Boro fans who were dishing out abuse to their former hero.

Have you noticed, also, that it's only good players who are singled out for such treatment? The reason being that the journeymen and downright rubbish players are scarcely worth wasting your breath on if you're an opposition supporter.

Whatever your opinions on the list of much-maligned players mentioned above, you can't deny they've all done the biz where it matters.

And the targets of terrace abuse will continue to do so, however politically correct the rest of society might become.