A FORMER footballer broke down in tears as he stood for the first time in 30 years in the same room as the coach he claims tried to rape him.

The 46-year-old victim of the alleged assault yesterday told Bristol Crown Court: “I’m standing here today for that 13-year-old boy.”

In 1986, the same year Diego Maradona’s Hand of God pushed England out of the World Cup, the man was a student at a Swindon secondary school and taking any opportunity he got to play football with his friends.

Coach Ronald Webb, now 75, was living in Old Town at the time. He was said to have approached his alleged victim and the boy’s friends as they played football in an Old Town park.

He told the boys he was setting up a new team that would take part in the league, asking them if they wanted to join the new club. “He’d just hang around with us. Really odd now, but back then we never thought anything of it,” the victim said. “I don’t think he had any knowledge of football whatsoever. He probably knew the ball was round.”

Yesterday, a Bristol Crown Court jury heard the boy and a small number of friends had visited Webb’s home on Winnifred Street during their school lunch break.

They were said to have watched a pornographic film, with the video leaving the 13-year-old player feeling embarrassed. He went to the bathroom and, as he was relieving himself, Webb allegedly barged his way into the room.

The flies of Webb’s jeans were undone. The court was told he forced the boy forward against the cistern, with one hand pressing against his back and the other pulling down the lad’s shorts Webb was said to have tried to rape the boy.

It was only when his friends called to him as they left the property that the boy was able to escape. Three decades later, the victim said had he not escaped “I was in no doubt where his penis would have gone”.

The Bristol jury heard the boy had kept quiet for 31 years, only reporting the matter to police after a national inquiry into child sexual abuse in football and feedback from bosses after he failed to win a promotion led him to question why he was thought to be unapproachable.

He told police interviewing him about the assault he did not want to be seen as a victim: “I have kept it to myself all these years…Over the last few years there have been occasions I have sat thinking do I need to tell somebody, am I able to tell somebody, am I strong enough to tell somebody?”

Under strong cross examination from George Threlfall, for Webb, the victim of the alleged assault broke down in the witness stand. He said: “I’m standing here today representing that 13-year-old boy.”

Mr Threlfall said: “Actually, you do want to be treated as a victim and you do want people to feel sorry for you. Having just failed to obtain promotion you were casting around to blame somebody else.”

Webb, of Brook Road, Bath, denies attempted buggery and indecent assault. The trial continues.