Monday’s sports letters: Humphreys serves as reminder of terrible Owls decline

All the very best to Ritchie Humphreys in the rest of his career in football.

How interesting but painful to be reminded of him in Monday’s paper.

He was outstanding for a few matches as a striker for Wednesday but became one of the victims of the mismanagement which began to plague the club around 15 years ago as they failed to build on the foundations laid by Ron Atkinson and Trevor Francis.

As the article correctly stated, he was pushed back into the shadows, mainly by the signing of Benito Carbone and then Paolo di Canio, but he should have been nurtured as the replacement for Paul Warhurst, who had been unwisely sold a couple of years earlier to keep room in the team for the declining and ageing David Hirst and Mark Bright.

Before he left the club, he was actually selected by the management to play at left-back.

And then of course di Canio, a much better player than Carbone, was sacrificed and we were told to admire the coming scoring heroes of Gilles de Bilde and Gerald Sibon! After criticising Italian “fancy dans”, the same manager was presumably happy with those two up front and Wim Jonk in midfield.

More worryingly, have things improved in the exercising of judgment over which players to acquire and let go at Hillsborough?

Some of the players acquired this year and some offered new contracts during the summer months are very lucky men in my opinion.

We go to football to watch players we admire but now the people to admire at Hillsborough are mainly the supporters.

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

Tony Wardle’s greatest England XI is a balanced side, with two spinners and two pacemen (Sports Monday August 22). But I’d pick Derek Underwood instead of Johnny Wardle, and Graham Gooch instead of John Edrich.

Mind you, I can see the day when May, Cowdrey and Graveney are replaced by Bell, Cook and Pietersen (reluctantly), such is the strength of the current team. Even Trott might get chosen instead of Gooch.

From: Brian Sheridan via email.

FurthEr to the debate on the greatest batsmen of all time I would certainly place Sir Viv Richards among them (Yorkshire Post Sport August 22).

However, it is worth noting that, through no fault of his own, the great man never had to face the likes of Roberts, Holding, Garner, Ambrose, Walsh, Bishop and Croft.

Individually, these men were among the most fearsome bowlers in history but deployed in numbers, as was usually the case, they were unplayable, making a mockery of the old adage of seeing off the opening attack. They say that bowlers win matches: these West Indian bowlers didn’t half take the pressure off their batsmen.