John Barnes

“So we fell asleep holding hands. If married couples got to do this all the time, shit if I could understand how there were ever divorces, or even fights.”

“I don't have to manage a big club. That won't fulfil me. I will get more satisfaction from the work that I put in than where I am.”

“We have to deconstruct the idea of racial superiority. We have had it for hundreds of years so it is not going to happen overnight but we have to tackle it in the right way.”

“I was a real fast food junkie - KFC, McDonald's - but all the training kept it off.”

“I grew up in a middle-class family in Jamaica, I had no self-worth issues whatsoever.”

“As I've been saying for decades, as long as racism exists in society, it will exist in all facets of society. Until we eradicate it from society, football will be like any other industry.”

“There is no right or wrong way of playing football.”

“Young English managers don't get enough time, young black managers aren't given enough time, there are a lot of reasons why.”

“Because I have experienced a prosperous, healthy and happy existence, I must have been a decent person in a past life.”

“I felt I had to take the Celtic opportunity. You quickly learn that any managerial vacancy attracts up to 60 or 70 applicants, so you need a good reason to turn a job down. A start is a start.”

“Just by saying it is wrong to be racist and saying we are going to arrest people and kick them out of stadiums does not stop them being racist.”

“I got racist abuse at Liverpool when I played for Watford. Then I played for Liverpool and didn't get it. If I had played for Everton against Liverpool then maybe the Liverpool fans would have racially abused me.”

“My mother made me believe in reincarnation, in karma. If I live a good life, I believe I will be reincarnated as a higher being. If I live a bad life, I believe I will be reincarnated as a lower being.”

“Football can do nothing about getting rid of racism. Society can.”

“If you are black then you have to be better than your white counterpart to be equal. That's life.”

“I don't see why black should be a negative and it's not negative. The people perpetrating that particular thought are wrong.”

“I come from a very political and military family.”

“I've never bought a pint of milk in my life.”

“The truth is that those at the top of British football do not care about getting rid of racism, they just don't want to hear it or see it.”

“How many black people are there in the higher echelons of any industry? We can talk about journalism, we can talk about politics. So why should football be any different?”