Let's look at DCFC in this. When it all started, the team took the knee, or more accurately, 10 of the 11 did. The 11th, a man of colour, chose to stand with a slightly raised clenched fist. Later he dropped the fist. Then the 11 lined up along the by-line in solidarity and, more recently, they stood in their starting positions. Actions spoken about by the squad and changed according to what the majority, possibly even all of them, thought of the "action".

Among those players making those decisions we had Curt, Nate, Festy, Rav, CKR, Malc, Lee??, Luke and Kornell in the squad on matchday. Those players of colour were, apparently, OK with the choice as the blurb put out on the club website said the original decision not to take the knee was unanimous.

Now, the knee taking was, initially, a protest against white oppression of people of colour. Not something elderly male Caucasians probably know much about and have certainly not experienced. It started in the USA with Kapernick. It cost him his career. Why? Because the NFL and, more importantly, the majority of its sponsors are male Caucasian. They didn't like the politics that the gesture brought with it. Taking that into account, is our opinion on it valid or even a reasonable thing to have? A lot will be able to sympathise with the hideous position people of colour are in with regard to discrimination, some will be able to even empathise. None of us really understand what it's about.

Did any of our parents have to have "the talk" with us on how to "cow-tow" to the police when (not if) they stop you for no apparent reason? Did any of us have to have that talk with our own children? If the answer to both questions is no, then, IMO, we have no real right to an opinion on it as we do not understand the subject in question.

Despite what I wrote in the previous paragraph, I will offer an opinion and explain why I am of that opinion. I think the protest/gesture has run its course and has become a sideshow. Almost half of our matchday squad are men of colour and they seem to be of the opinion that it's lost any power it had. I'm with them because they know what it's all about and I'm pretty sure all of them will have been stopped at some point in their lives because they are men of colour. We are fortunate that this hideous treatment of men of colour isn't anywhere near as bad in the UK as it is in the USA but it's still nowhere near what it should be and that is on a footing with how Caucasians are treated.

Racism is still rife everywhere. Dutch police are pretty even handed although there are the odd bad eggs in there. The real problems lie in organisations like our tax authority where, although there are no rules or Laws or even instructions to be harsher on people of colour, a practice of labelling them as possible fraudsters just crept in. Once so labelled in their system, you were treated to the full works every year with your tax returns. The label filtered through into all manner of places. It affected credit ratings making loans nigh on impossible to get causing hardship to many families. It's now been recognised and is being rectified but it will take time. What were the signals that triggered the taxman? Double nationality, your name and, in some cases where there had been personal contact, even what you look like.

In short, there needs to be some kind of expression of how wrong racism is but, following the lead of Derby's players of colour, also not forgetting Liam Rosenior, the knee has outlived its usefulness IMO.