A GREAT-GRANDFATHER has been found guilty of making monkey gestures at black Blackburn Rovers players after one of them scored a controversial goal against his Middlesbrough team.

Players Lee Williamson, Rudy Gestede and Markus Olsson spotted Ernest Goult, 72, making the gestures after Gestede scored a last minute equaliser against Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium in November last year. 

Goult told the court the gesture he made of putting his hand under his armpit was a well-known Teesside expression that means “it’s the pits, it’s rubbish”.

MORE TOP STORIES:

He denied two public offences – one racially aggravated – but was found guilty at Teesside Magistrates’ Court by district judge Stephen Harmes following a day-long trial. Goult was fined £600, ordered to pay £600 costs and was given a three-year football banning order.

Williamson, Gestede and Olsson each told the court how Goult made the gestures at the end of a match at the Riverside Stadium, in Middlesbrough, on March 29, last year.

A district judge heard how Gestede scored a 94th-minute equaliser that deprived the home team of two points and second place in the Championship.

Prosecutor Paul Power said the goal was also contentious because the home fans believed their goalkeeper had been fouled and Gestede was the ‘pantomime villain’.

Goult, of Redcar, had denied a racially aggravated public order offence and an alternative charge of using threatening or abusive words or behaviour.

Williamson who was the Rovers’ captain on that evening, said the match ended and he and his team passed Middlesbrough fans on their way to applaud their own supporters.

He said: “On the way to our fans I see a Middlesbrough fan making monkey gestures towards me.”

The player then demonstrated a one-armed gesture under his arm pit. He said the man did it four or five times. “I felt upset,” Williamson said. Asked what he felt the gesture meant, he said: “Implying that I’m a monkey.”

The player confirmed he took it to be a racist gesture.

Williamson said the supporter also made a “****** sign” towards him.

Gestede said he saw the man doing the gesture about 10 times.

He also said he got angry and went towards the supporter but was told to calm down by a colleague.

Amy Dixon, defending, asked the player whether the gesture could mean “you’re the pits, you’re rubbish” but Gestede replied: “No”.

He agreed with Mr Power that he was the ‘pantomime villain’ after his injury time goal that deprived Middlesbrough of two points.

Olsson told the court: “It was like a monkey gesture and he wasn’t trying to hide it. He was doing it towards a black person and it was obvious what it meant. I have seen it before.”

The player said he was not concerned about the ****** gesture. “It’s something we see every week,” he said.

Pc Christopher Hilton said: “The gesture I saw, I would perceive that to be a racist gesture towards the players.”

The officer said Goult contacted police after Cleveland Police released a picture of the man they wanted to talk to.

In interviews read to the court, Goult said in a prepared statement that he was not a racist and the gesture was an established Teesside expression meaning “the pits”.

Pc Hilton told the court: “As a football fan and watching football matches, I have never heard of that. When I Googled it, nothing came back.”