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Ian Evatt hopes the yobs responsible for racially abusing his players at Morecambe on Saturday get banned – but insists he never thought about forcing the game to be postponed.
Despite leading his players off the field with seven minutes of normal time remaining after a racist remark was aimed a player on the Bolton bench, the Whites boss says he always wanted the match to be completed.
Referee Ross Joyce agreed to take all players off the field of play for 10 minutes as stewards and police went about their business, and Wanderers re-entered the field of play to snatch an equalising goal through Amadou Bakayoko.
Even without the point at the Mazuma Stadium, Evatt said it would have sent the wrong message not to step back out on to the pitch.
“Postponing was the right thing to do temporarily,” he said. “If we cancelled the game, the people that are doing these things are winning. They can’t affect society and games and everything else the way they are doing.
“Their behaviour is unacceptable. I hope they get banned.
“I hope the police are involved, I don’t know any of that right now, but we all heard it and the racist remark was what tipped everything over the edge, but there was a lot, lot more before it.”
Evatt said he and other members of the Wanderers backroom were subjected to abuse throughout 90 minutes from behind the dugout, and that members of staff had been spat on by some of the home supporters.
The racist remark arrived shortly afterwards, which triggered Evatt to walk on to the field of play to speak directly to referee Joyce.
“The guy that made the racist remark ran out the stadium as quickly as possible, so he knew, and we knew. We will not accept it.
“If it happens to one of us, then it happens to us all and I’m not willing to stand there and carry on doing my job when people cross the line like that and they crossed the line, there’s no doubt about it.”
During the break in play, Evatt spoke briefly to his players to ask for one final push.
“I just said for all our upset, all our emotion, we have to keep our discipline but channel it in the right way and go and get something out of the game because that will hurt them the most and we did so I’m so proud of them.”
Bakayoko’s equalising goal sparked riotous scenes, including a pitch invasion by a few dozen Bolton supporters.
The striker also raced over to the Main Stand, cupping his ears towards the home fans and eventually putting his fingers to his lips.
Evatt felt the overt celebrations were justified, considering the frustrations of the afternoon.
“At the end of the day, we are human beings and we don’t deserve to be abused like that from minute one until minute 90 and we need protection and we need it stamping out of the game and if emotions spill out we are only human, so I can only apologise for that, but I’m certainly not going to apologise for the way my players behaved today. I thought they were brilliant.”
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