Clovio Azie knew that something was seriously wrong as soon as he noticed one of his Chapeltown under-10s players quietly sobbing midway through the first half of a recent match.

“I was immediately very concerned because he is not a player who ever complains,” says Azie. He approached the boy and was told that an opponent had called him a “fat black cow”. A complaint has gone into the West Riding Football Association but, around a month on, they are still waiting for a resolution.

Another player’s mother needed time off work after her son, who plays in the under-11s, had been abused. “She was just so upset that she had put her child in a position to access racism,” says Lutel James, who runs the Chapeltown Youth Development Centre. “For some families, it destroys them deeply. For some kids, it has stopped them playing. They feel like they are less of a person. It is heartbreaking.”

At the end of a season in which racism has so blighted elite football, a Saturday morning visit to Chapeltown provides an alarming snapshot of life at the grass-roots. Tajean Hutton, the grass-roots manager at anti-racism charity Kick It Out, uses the words “war zone” to describe racist abuse at this level. He estimates it is 10 times worse than the elite.