Tomorrow (Friday) is the last day to buy tickets for Aldershot Town's League Two match against Brentford at The EBB Stadium this Saturday.

Aldershot Town and the police decided last month to make the match against The Bees all-ticket, to keep the public safe and supporters apart.

It is the first home match since the game on October 4 where racist chants were said to have been made at a visiting Bury player.

A spokesman for anti-racism group Kick It Out has praised Shots fans’ response to the incident.

A fan, who did not want to be named, reported it on the fans' forum of independent website Shotsweb, and the story was clicked on by more than 4,000 people.

“I was standing when I heard the noises coming from behind me,” he said. “They were making gorilla and baboon-type noises, made quite fleetingly but when [the player] came very close. It was very obvious what he was doing.”

He added that he had heard racist comments come from the same part of the stands during previous matches.

Police confirmed the all-ticket decision was taken before the alleged incident. Brentford sold out their ticket allocation around three weeks ago.

A spokesman said police decided with the club to deny tickets on the day because they did not want Brentford fans arriving en masse to buy tickets.

Club chairman John McGinty says racism has no place in football and called on fans to approach anyone they see making racist gestures.

He said: “It’s bloody horrible. Racism has no place at football games.
 
“Most of the players are black so the people who do these things — well I think they are not football fans. We wouldn’t recognise them as football fans. We can tell them to go, thank you very much.”

Danny Lynch, a spokesman for anti-racism group Kick It Out, said he did not want to encourage fans to be ‘have a go heroes’. He said: “People might not feel comfortable to approach someone making racist gestures, which is why the stewards are the best to approach.

“Fans need to speak to a police officer or a steward.

“There’s fewer people at lower league games. It’s not like a match with 50,000 or 60,000 people, where it is less easy to spot such behaviour.

He added the sooner racism is reported, the better.

He said: “People should report it as soon as they hear it. If you leave it until half-time or the end of the match when loads of people are leaving there’s less time to identify them. Then it’s more difficult to do anything.

“You will find that once the person has been identified other people start going ‘he’s right — I heard something similar’.

“It becomes a bit of a swell against the person.”

He praised the Shots fans’ discussion on their website. 

“It produced quite a bit of debate, which is a good thing,” he said. “Ten or 15 years ago that just wouldn’t have been able to happen but now anytime anything like this happens it can go straight into the public domain.”

Mr McGinty added that the club has stewards, police on duty and security cameras to keep fans safe. He said: “We’ve spent £46,000 on cameras alone. The police are very aware at Aldershot.

“They will be taking the steps to protect our safety. We’ve got cameras and stewards. We have security.”

He added he was proud of how cordial things had been at Saturday’s away game against Macclesfield Town, where he said Aldershot fans were treated brilliantly.
 
He said: “I’m proud of the chairman of Macclesfield Town. They served them food and drink while they were watching the match. That’s not the reputation of bad people.”

Aldershot's fans also recently won praise for their tribute to Jimmy Sirrel, who died two days before the defeat at Notts County last month. Sirrel was a legendary manager at County but played and coached at Aldershot too and the two sets of fans joined together to sing their respects, before and during the match at County's Meadow Lane home.

It is now too late to book tickets for Saturday’s game against Brentford over the telephone but the club ticket office is open today (Thursday) until 7.30pm and tomorrow, from 9.30am to 7.30pm.