Melbourne police are investigating the attack on Menachem Vorchheimer, 33, who was walking with his children, aged three and six, along Balaclava Road in the suburb of Caulfield about 6.30pm on Saturday.

Mr Vorchheimer was wearing traditional Jewish dress, including a shabbat hat, when men from the Ocean Grove Football Club who had been at the nearby Caulfield Guineas race meeting yelled taunts including "F... off Jews" and "Go the Nazis," he told News Limited newspapers.

He alleged they then motioned to him and his children as if they were shooting a machine-gun.

Mr Vorchheimer said he approached the minibus when it stopped at a red light to find out who the group represented.

When the lights changed, the bus moved off and two of the players grabbed his hats, the shabbat and a yarmulke cap.

The bus stopped a short distance away and when Mr Vorchheimer went to retrieve his hat, he was pulled towards a window and punched.

"The window was opening and they grabbed my hands and, before I knew it, there was a king-hit across the face ... It knocked me back quite a bit and the blood started gushing out of my face and I started feeling really sick. I could hear my kids screaming and crying in the background," Mr Vorchheimer told Southern Cross Radio.

"This is just not acceptable. Australian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim. Whoever you are, no-one should have to put up with this socially irresponsible behaviour."

Ocean Grove Football Club president Michael Vines said he did not know the circumstances of the attack but apologised and said the club took the allegations seriously.

"If that did in fact occur, on behalf of the club I would apologise to him most sincerely," he told Southern Cross Radio.

However, club coach Matthew Sproule said Mr Vorchheimer's hats were removed "accidentally" in a tussle through the bus window.

"The driver ... did not know the person at the back had the hat. We realised the person was chasing us down the street for his hat. We pulled over and we put the hat to the side, then we got run off the road by another person who wouldn't let us move after his hat was returned," he told Southern Cross Radio.

"We don't know (who threw the punch) with all the commotion that was going on at the time.

"At the time the man in question asked for an apology and we gave an apology to him and he said, 'No, it's 10 seconds too late. I'm calling the police'."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20595697-2702,00.html