Sports Letters

From Mr D Turull Sir: One of the main reasons that football fans everywhere believe that Eric Cantona should be banned for life is for the inexcusably bad example he set for the many children in the crowd and those watching on television. This in itself is a fair point. However, it must be added that those who put forward this argument have obviously not attended a football match themselves in the last few years. In the whole stand, including the family enclosure, there is a constant barrage of swearing from a high percentage of fans, making sure that if the young children there do not understand and use these words already, that they and their friends at school will be using them by the following day. The last match I attended, the man next to me was getting himself ready to have a fight with an opposition fan he had managed to taunt before the match, a sight that is not at all uncommon.

Until these problems are ironed out how can we criticise the players for providing poor examples, when given half the chance, many fans would provide a considerably worse one?

Yours faithfully, DANIEL TURULL Clifton Bristol