Money before players’ welfare

ONCE again a football club, after a string of bad results, has sacked its manager.

I am not a supporter of Sunderland FC but I sympathise with their fans over decisions taken by their board in appointing and then sacking their coaches.

I said last year that they would regret getting rid of Martin O’Neill who I considered to be one of the best coaches in the country.

He was just beginning to build a team and he was gone and in came an Italian “showman” who was going to “break stones with sticks” and get the team moving up the table. It can’t be good for the morale of the team to witness such goings-on.

The wisdom of football club boards must be questioned. I think maybe some are more interested in their investments than in the welfare of the players.

Criminal to do away with DNA

From: Karl Sheridan, Selby Road, Holme on Spalding Moor.

The recent court decision overruling an ex-offender’s appeal that after so many years of “being clean” as regards crime he should not have to be compelled to give DNA samples was in my opinion the right one, and a big plus in the fight against crime.

As regards criminals bleating about their “human rights” I regard those as a minor issue compared to the rights of law- abiding citizens, and government ought to make it mandatory that ALL criminals’ DNA goes on, and stays on, all police databases forever.

Taking old stock

From: Tim Mickleburgh, Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

I found myself waiting on Sheffield station at the weekend, looking at the type of trains serving the city. And I must admit that I was surprised to see the bulk of local services being operated by pacers and the oldest kind of sprinter units.

To me this bears things out that the North gets a rough deal when it comes to pubic transport funding, as the units I saw at Birmingham New Street that same day were much more state-of-the art.