Forty years of hurt ... but it's never stopped us dreaming

Peter Preston ignores the conspicuous social benefits of being a nation of sporting failures: with no home teams qualifying, a major international football tournament has just passed off with none of the red-top hysteria, repugnant proliferation of redundant "nationalist" insignia, and lager-fuelled boorishness and bigotry that usually have us delicate sportophobes hiding in the wardrobe (The Britsport illusion, June 30).

If, as Preston predicts, our Beijing takeaway will consist largely of stir-fried humiliation with sour sauce, who knows, maybe one day people will lose interest altogether. At last, something to look forward to ...
Root Cartwright
Radlett, Hertfordshire

It was interesting to see two quite different Guardian articles on how bad we are at international sport. Peter Preston points out that Victor Keegan used to use relative population size to illustrate this after every Olympic games. It proved that not only were we useless, but that large numbers of other wealthy European states such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden were useless too.

David Mitchell takes a light-hearted view of the same phenomenon (Britain is not ghastly enough to spawn winners, June 28). Rather than join "Mr McGlum" in his view that we are "loungers and scroungers", we should take Mitchell's view and decide that failure at international sport is "hardly regrettable".

Is Wimbledon any less enjoyable because there is only one possibility of home-grown success? Was Euro 2008 a bore because no home nation was involved? Only to flag-waving chauvinist little Brits, surely?
Cliff Willmot
Bewdley, Worcestershire

Your lead article (In praise of our boys, June 20) suggested a certain naivety: is it really possible for Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal fans to consider their players as "our boys" when they are always on the prowl for pastures new (or big pay cheques and bonuses)?

However, in suggesting that competition between the leagues of Europe can not be far away, the leader may have unwittingly pointed to the ultimate destination of football. Players will own themselves and will arrive for games not knowing who they will play with, and then pick the sides themselves.
We will also have the security of knowing that our entrance fee and the TV monies, bar all but the minimal expenses, will go to the players, rather than being siphoned off to pay debts of the club owners, or the transaction costs of transfers and contract negotiations.

International football will benefit, as the national team will effectively be the players' club. It will at least stop the argument that too many foreign players in the English game is the cause of our poor national showing.
Stephen Wood

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