It's come from the mouths of spectators, while opposing players have used similar terminology.

In his younger playing days he was apprehensive to report it.

He had little faith in the support systems in place and he felt the "my word versus his word" scenario would more than likely favour the "his word".

The 25-year-old Elmore footballer was playing in a recent Heathcote District Football Netball League game when an opposing supporter - from little more than five metres away - called him a "black ....".

It was a remark that brought Gordon to tears and left him questioning his football future, particularly considering another spectator from a different rival club had yelled something similar earlier this season.

In the past Gordon admits he might have been too immature to challenge racial abuse.

This time around he wanted to make a stand - "enough is enough".

"There was a scuffle going on near the boundary and I was at the bottom of it,'' Gordon, who is in his first season with Elmore, recalled.

"I got up and this man was basically standing on the boundary line yelling abuse at me.

"He said what he said and I looked at him and said 'are you serious?'.

"I called out to our president and told him what had been said and the man shut up pretty quickly. Quite a few people went to him and told what he did wasn't right.

"The incident shook me pretty hard. I cried after the game. I said to the boys that I don't actually want to play for the rest of the year.

"Why should I play when this has happened twice this year now and it could happen three, four or five times? The support I received from team-mates was great and even some of the opposition players came up to me after the game and asked if I was okay.

"I thought that was really good of them to do that."

The incident brought back some chilling memories for Gordon from a game in a Melbourne suburban league.

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To this day he regrets the way he handled the situation.

"About six years ago myself and my cousin were verbally abused by an opposing player,'' Gordon said.

"We were much younger at the time and we didn't know how to react or what to do about it. We could have taken it to the tribunal, but it was a case of our word against his, so we basically did nothing.

"I'm older now and regardless of who heard what was said I'm going to stand up for things like that.

"I know what's right and what's wrong and I'm not going to stand for it."

Becoming a father last year has heightened Gordon's intolerance of racial abuse.

"A team-mate of mine has young indigenous kids that come down to training and are always at our games,'' Gordon said.

"I have a one-year-old son that will be at our games and the last thing I want him to hear when he's a 10-year-old kid is people in the crowd yelling those abusive remarks.

"Why would he want to play football if he's going to cop the same thing?."

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The Elmore FNC contacted the HDFNL on behalf of Gordon and league boss Peter Cole met with him.

Horrified by the actions of the spectator, Cole and the HDFNL echoed Gordon's campaign that "enough is enough".

"We, as a league, are very disappointed with the claims of racial vilification against Dylan Gordon,'' Cole said.

"Dylan is one of the best footballers in our competition and for him to be racial vilified twice in the space of 10 rounds in our competition is very disappointing.

"The first incident was treated through AFL protocols which are based on confidentiality.

"After the second incident I sat down with Dylan and explained to him that if we handled this incident through the AFL system again no-one would know what had been done.

"So the people at the ground that day that heard what the man said would think "that's alright because nothing has been done".

"The AFL vilification rule, in my opinion, protects the person who said it because of anonymity. The person who cops the abuse, like Dylan, is not anonymous. Everyone knows who they're talking about.

"Dylan decided that he wanted to make a statement that enough is enough. In discussions we decided to go through the media and ensure the public knows that what is happening is not good enough.

"Had we gone down this path the first time, maybe this incident wouldn't have happened.

"Hopefully, by doing this story it gives everyone in the league a wake-up call.

"Whether it's at senior football or junior football, you can't racially abuse anyone.

"That's not just indigenous people. It could be Sudanese, Chinese, Italian - our game is multicultural.

"As a league we're backing Dylan and we join him in saying 'enough is enough'.

"We want to create an awareness throughout the league that racial vilification won't be tolerated. This incident has happened, but we don't want it to happen again and, if it does, we want the community in our league to call the people out.

"If you're silly enough to say these things you won't be watching games in our league for a very long time."

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Cole said the supporter involved in the incident had been dealt with by the league.

Education on indigenous culture is one area Gordon would like to see improved in the HDFNL.

"Elmore is just bringing in its own indigenous round with our own indigenous jumper,'' Gordon said.

"It would be great to see every club get around something like that.

"If people say these things it should be a life ban from games or at the very least a four or five-year ban.

"It's raising awareness that racial abuse is not okay. Enough is enough and we're not standing for it anymore."

Gordon knows that going public with this issue will potentially open himself to more verbal abuse from uneducated players and supporters.

"I'm happy for people to call me whatever they like, but using my skin colour is just not acceptable,'' he said.

The support of family, team-mates, the HDFNL board, the Elmore FNC and the township of Elmore itself has raised Gordon's confidence that racial vilification can be a thing of the past.

He'll be back on the field for Elmore this Saturday.

"If I didn't play again then this guy would think that he won,'' Gordon said.

"The best thing I can do is pull the boots on again and enjoy my footy again with Elmore."

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