Letter: Football thugs

Letter: Football thugs

Sir: When I was a young man I had access to fields to play cricket and football on, and was taught how to play rugby by a geology master who taught us after school.

Unfortunately the teaching profession fell into Margaret Thatcher's trap and decided not to be involved in activities after school. Thus hundreds of thousands of children were denied an outlet for their feelings of aggression in organised sport. Going on a Saturday to watch a football match and vilifying the opposition is the way millions of people get this violence off their chests.

Unfortunately the way sport is going there will be more and more people watching rich sportsmen and fewer playing sport. Sporting crowds are getting more jingoistic as they contain fewer sportsmen.

Although we are leading the field in hooliganism, the other nations are catching up, as evidenced by the domestic football problems in Argentina and the Netherlands this season, and, as on the football pitch, they will overtake us.

MIKE TURNER

Stockton-on-Tees