Pat Nevin met Chelsea fans from the National Front and stared down the racists over monkey chants

Pat Nevin stood up to the National Front when he was a Chelsea player, got threatened for it and met some of his haters face to face behind his club’s back.

But try calling him brave and he bristles. “I wasn’t brave. I hate being called that,” is his response. “The brave people were the black lads who had to stand up to that. They were in danger. Not me, I was a Chelsea player and I was white.” Nevin is nearly 60 and age hasn’t mellowed him when it comes to raging against injustice.

It was one of the aspects of his personality that made him stand out from the crowd as a football player – he was affectionately called Weirdo by his team-mates at Stamford Bridge – and for a 19-year-old having moved down to London from Glasgow to call out a large section of his club’s own support within months was certainly different. It was the early 80s and Chelsea had just signed their first black player, winger Paul Canoville, with whom Nevin struck up a friendship through their shared love of music. And when racist abuse rained down on Canoville in a match against Crystal Palace, the young Scot wasn’t having it.

Nevin told the Off The Record podcast: “It was a minority, but a large minority of Chelsea fans in my first season down there and it came to a head one day.

“Back then people were saying it was just society, they’re nutters and we don’t like them but move on. I thought we should have been a bit noisier and louder and after one game Paul was getting dogs’ abuse.

"I scored the winning goal against Palace and just refused to speak about the game, the goal or anything. I just said I was disgusted with those fans, particularly our own ones because I was hearing monkey chants and the stuff they were giving Paul was unacceptable.

“What