Be it in the boxing ring, or playing rugby league, both at NRL level and locally in Group Nine, the Wagga sports star has copped vile racial taunts on several occasions in the sporting arena.

“In the boxing ring I’ve had people say, ‘smash the black dog’,” Mr Williams said.

“At an NRL level I’ve had people make reference to Aboriginal cultural beliefs and saying that I’m nothing but an Abo who’s an alcoholic.”

At Group Nine level, he’s copped racial insults too offensive to print – and worse, they’ve been made in earshot of his three-year-old son.

Mr Goodes has taken time off from playing for the Sydney Swans after being subjected to relentless booing from West Coast Eagles fans in Perth last weekend.

While disappointed to see people continuing to boo Mr Goodes at AFL games, Mr Williams doesn’t believe the majority of people who choose to do so have racist intentions.

“I believe now if there were a large amount of people who boo Adam Goodes now in a game, I believe it’s a very small minority that do it out of racism – the fact there’s still a minority is a sad issue,” he said.

“In my eyes, booing someone, it doesn’t matter how good they are, how bad they are, booing someone at their job is completely disrespectful and I wouldn’t find my self doing it anyway.”

He is hopeful that while the actions of crowds in booing Mr Goodes is exposing the racial divide in Australia, that ultimately it will prove to be the first step in healing the rift.

“I believe the gap’s going to widen now, but in the long term it will mend,” Mr Williams said.

“Unfortunately it’s bringing the racial behaviour to the surface but that’s the only way we can learn from it. It depends on the individual whether they take it on board.”

Wiradjuri man Mark Saddler, along with his brother Scott, also endured racially motivated taunts when he played footy locally.

Mr Saddler believes, however, the media has whipped up the Goodes controversy to fever pitch and wants to draw a line in the sand with the saga.

“I believe the media has made it a lot bigger than what it actually is,” he said.

“We ourselves as Aboriginal people need to better educate the wider public in coming together as a community. We’ve talked about it enough – we need to be mindful of what happened, but our country needs to come together as a nation that accepts everybody – colour, race and disability.”