A North Yorkshire non-league soccer club has announced it will ban supporters from the ground who make racist taunts against players.

Harrogate Town acted swiftly following incidents in the FA Cup Third Qualifying round tie at Accrington Stanley where a small number of fans made racist taunts.

The match ended in a 0-0 draw and in the replay at Wetherby Road, on Tuesday, Harrogate won 3-2 to reach the fourth qualifying round for the first time in its history.

Although there were no repeat incidents of racial abuse at Wetherby Road, the club's managing director Nigel Pleasants said he did not expect the problem to rear its head again. But he vowed the club would take swift and decisive action if any Harrogate supporter was involved in racist taunts.

A note in the club's latest programme said: "Harrogate Town do not wish to be associated with such behaviour and will take steps to ban individuals from the ground."

The club said the racist remarks at Accrington had caused offence to the vast majority of supporters.

Mr Pleasants said not only would Harrogate take action but he fully supported the eff-orts of England and the Football Association in their protest over racist taunts from the crowd in England's European clash in Slovakia last week.

The FA believes that racist taunts by home fans fuelled crowd trouble at the match.

Harrogate Town has announced that the supporters' club is running coaches to the FA Cup tie At Wisbech a week on Saturday. For details contact 01423 525211