"Well, obviously with the announcement, it wasn't like, 'Oh my God, it's a black referee'. It was more like, 'Oh, it's a black referee'," the former England striker, 60, recalled.

"I always found that when I played with him [as the referee] there was no real interaction.

"With some of the other referees, you could speak to them, have a little banter. And I think that the pressure he probably would have been under - to not have that kind of interaction with the other black players - must have been really intense, simply because of what people might say."

Rennie took charge of his final game in the Premier League on the last day of the 2007-08 season.

At 6ft 2in and a practitioner of kick-boxing and aikido, Rennie was an imposing figure who players soon learned would be more than comfortable standing his ground during an exchange.