I feel like I'm wading into muddy ground here, but without having being present during the conversation, I read the comments as a slight against Swinton as a town. ie. a joke in poor taste that they are ignorant and a bit backwards. It's the kind of thing you might say to a mate as a joke, but it's totally inappropriate to someone you're just meeting in a professional capacity. He should be rightfully embarrassed, but for me the apology is enough.
As someone who is mixed race, who has gone to live games regularly for the last 15 years, I'm amazed to say I've never seen even the slightest bit of racism. I think we're pretty good as a sport for it. Watching the BBC's codebreakers docu I think shows partly why.
If these are the kind of comments we have to - rightfully - discuss, then we're doing ok. I despair when I look at the state of football, where racism is completely ingrained!
Stupid comment by Argyle, I'm sure it won't happen again. Lets move on.