It was reported in the media last week that an assistant groundsman at Lincoln City FC has been sacked following a series of racist comments posted to Twitter.

Lincolnshire Live said that Ashley Barratt was dismissed 12 hours after the club were made aware of the tweets, following an investigation. 

The local paper says the Tweets, which were posted online between September and October 2017, before he became an employee at the club, refered to Muslims as "a cancer", claimed they were 'taking over Europe' and referred to London, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and Manchester, which all have high Muslim populations, as 'hellholes'.

His actions were brought to light by a number of different anti-racist groups and activists on Twitter including Resisting Hate.

Reporting on the story, the BBC, quoted a club spokesperson as saying, "Lincoln City Football Club was recently made aware of certain racial comments made by a club employee on social media which were potentially inflammatory and discriminatory in nature.

"These comments were made prior to the person in question becoming an employee of the club, however, Lincoln City Football Club does not condone racism in any form, on or off the field, and any behaviour of this type by anyone connected with the club is totally unacceptable.

"The club have since undertaken a full investigation into this matter, as a result of which the employee has been dismissed from their position."

Ashley Barrett's Twitter account has since been deleted.