RACIST football supporter Matthew Gould was today beginning a four-year soccer ban after shouting racial abuse during a Gillingham match. Shaven-headed Gould, a former member of the British National Party, chanted Sieg Heil and yelled abuse at a number of black players during Gillingham's game with Preston at Priestfield in December last year.

He admitted that as he was thrown out of the ground by stewards, he shouted "Jewish-run oppression boys, Jewish-run oppression" and gave a Nazi salute outside the ground, but denied they had a racist intent.

But Medway magistrates found him guilty of racial chanting and racially-aggravated disorderly conduct. He was banned from all international and all Premiership and Nation-wide League games in England and Wales for four years. Gould, 30, of East Street, Gillingham, was also fined £200 and ordered to pay £125 costs.

Today the ban was welcomed by soccer fans and ethnic minority groups in Medway. Alan Liptrott, a committee member of the Gills Supporters' Club, said: "We support the move to kick racism out of football and anything combating it is good. The truth is that 99.9 per cent of supporters go for the football but there is a very minute element who are intent on bringing racism into it and they must expect the harshest penalties if they do that."

Sucha Gill, chairman of the Kent Multicultural Community Association, said: "I'm very pleased that the courts are taking action against these people. It's good news, especially for all the victims of racial abuse."

Gould, a company postroom worker whose tattoos include the swastika, neo-Nazi symbols and a Combat 18 symbol, denied all charges against him.

Defence counsel Kerim Fuad said: "On the face of it, it was incredibly stupid behaviour. So why did he behave like such an idiot? Because he was expressing his anti-authority views. Not racist views against blacks and Jews but against the way the stewards behaved."