They are two Jamaica-born England internationals playing 30 years apart, but racism has proved an issue for both.
Manchester City winger, Raheem Sterling was allegedly racially abused during his side’s 2-0 defeat at Chelsea, while former Liverpool winger, John Barnes experienced racism in his career.
Barnes famously backheeled a banana skin off the pitch in a game at Everton in 1988 and tells BBC Sport that the problem has not gone away since his playing days.
“It’s been well documented over the years,” says Barnes. “For any black player in the 1980s it would have been the same old racist chants, bananas on the field – just something that was an accepted part of society and football.
“Maybe the overt racism that I experienced, you may not have seen in the last 20 years. Now, with the Raheem Sterling incident, maybe it has reared its ugly head again.
“I, for one, never thought that it had went away – you just never heard it because people kept their mouths shut.
“It didn’t surprise me because black people go through invisible banana skins being thrown at them and unspoken racial abuse every day of their lives.
“The very fact that now a real banana skin came on and there was real abuse doesn’t surprise me at all. I just thought it was to be expected.”
“Those days haven’t gone. They have gone in terms of the overt racism. In many respects, I much prefer the overt racism now to the racism we went through in the last 10 years whereby we are being told that it doesn’t exist so, therefore, let’s get on with it. I knew that not to be true.
“In many respects, I’m glad it happened because it will bring home to people that we have still got a long way to go and it is still alive and kicking.”