OXFORD United players have joined a national campaign to stamp out bullying.

Members of the first team squad stepped in blue paint and stamped their footprints on cards to symbolise the initiative.

The club’s community officer Peter Rhoades-Brown took the footprints to New Marston Primary School in Oxford to highlight bullying issues.

He said: “There is no place for bullying, whether it is at school or later in life.

“The players were happy to try and get that message across, and if the display of their footprints helps do that then that is fantastic. Bullying is wrong, stamp it out.”

The stars who got behind the campaign included strikers James Constable and Jack Midson, defenders Steve Kinniburgh and Damian Batt, winger Sam Deering and midfielder Dannie Bulman.

Mr Constable, who scored United’s winning goal against Forest Green on Tuesday, said he had experienced low-level bullying and teasing at school.

He said: “I had red hair so I was an easy person to pick on — I got the usual nicknames and name callings. I have had it first hand and it’s not nice. I also used to get stick for training every day and not going out drinking when everybody else was.”

The 25-year-old called on children who were being victimised to tell someone they trusted about what was happening.

He said: “The best thing is to tell someone – don’t try and deal with it yourself and get in fights because that doesn’t help. For me, I used it as motivation to be successful and go on and do what I wanted to do.

“I don’t think there is anything worse than having that kind of pressure when no-one else knows.”

Other campaign initiatives include a song written, performed and recorded by young people, called Don’t Suffer in Silence. It was created by members of Oxfordshire’s Young People’s Anti-bullying Advisory Group in association with the Ark-T Youth Music Project.

The national Anti-Bullying Alliance also held a conference at the Kassam Stadium earlier this month.

Louise Chapman, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for children, young people and families, said: “It is only right that the issue is tackled head-on.”