John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.
For all his prowess, there is no way I would have allowed Andy Murray to play on the centre court at Wimbledon. What an awful example he set to all the up and coming tennis players with his unsportsmanlike behaviour, his fist throwing, and his shouting on what is regarded as hallowed ground in the tennis world. He should have been on an outside court.
Although not a great tennis fan, I enjoy watching a good match between two closely seeded players, but I felt quite embarrassed at the antics on Centre Court on Tuesday. I wonder what the French No 1 thought about it all, not only had he to put up wi
th a hostile crowd, which is only natural, but his opponent at the other end was behaving like a spoilt brat. I hope it is not going to get like football.
Peter Broadley, Halifax
I refer to Martyn Moxon's reported comments on the rush towards Twenty20, a version loosely (very) based on a game played by people such as Bradman, Hutton, Sobers, Trueman and Laker.
As a Yorkshire member, I suppose I should be grateful for the funds this 'Pop Festival' generates to subsidise the game of cricket which I enjoy, certainly the chief executive would wish this to be my view – but then we know that Mr Regan knows little or nothing about cricket.
One evening, in the absence of finding anything else to watch – I tuned into the match at Chelmsford, where Essex were playing Sussex. As others will know, the County Ground at Chelmsford is not the largest to start with, but in the interest of creating an even greater illusion, the authorities decided to reduce the size of the playing area by at least 10 yards all the way round.
Not surprisingly, every push, flick or miss hit went to the boundary, indeed Napier a player who cannot hold a place in the Championship team, managed to clear the boundary on 16 occasions.
The exploits were enjoyed by the lager-swilling, and wine-quaffing spectators together with the youngsters who had been conned into believing that this was cricket.
The sad thing, though not surprising, is that we had a former England captain (Hussain) and a former England coach (Lloyd) 'prostituting' themselves, for a pay cheque from Sky.
Why not stop the pretence and simply do away with the bat and ball and have the participants strip down to jock straps doing three laps of the ground singing "It's a long way to Tipperary" and doing some press-ups!
It would have as much relevance to cricket as Twenty-20 and it may bring more people into Headingley but which Channel would Sky televise it on?
From: Kevin Maguire, Wheatcroft, Batley.
What a recent weekend for the Leeds Rhinos. Brian McClennan put his faith in the Academy youngsters, and look what happened, they beat the Tigers from Castleford! This is the way forward. The management at Headingley must be gratified about their investment in the Academy.
Next season, where will the new players come from? Are some of the youthful stars already in the National One or Two? We should now be having an effect on Super League by the number of 'home-grown' players. There is no point in investing heavily in overseas stars. This is why the Headingley outfit are at the top, and begging a place at Wembley.
Well done Leeds.
From: E Firth, Wilsden, West Yorkshire.
When you consider that the German football team is one of their worst in living memory, how did they make the final?
In a word "attitude". Like Americans and Australians they have the right mindset, positive, optimistic, and forward looking. And the British? The very opposite, negative, defeatist, and forever looking back, 66 and all that. For goodness sake, the Germans have six World Cup finals and six Euro finals, and we're still on about '66.
We have a lot of government programmes, but the one that's really needed is a national "mind expansion programme", but with our dreary little islander mentality there's little hope.
I fear it will destroy us in the end.
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