RICHARD Witschge's comments (LET, June 17) when he talked about English footballers were not all that far wrong.

The people of Blackburn are generally poor. Trying to live on wages of £3.50 an hour isn't easy.

The town itself is ugly in lots of places, although it has improved over the last 15 years since I came here.

As for English footballers having no skill, I would agree with him if he is talking about individual skills.

It is a known fact that English footballers don't possess the finer skills of the South Americans and continental footballers.

Most of our players can't even kill a ball, or run with it without kicking it too far ahead. English footballers are not in the same class as other teams as far as ball skills are concerned.

Gazza's the exception.

B PEARCE (Mr), Dunoon Drive, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.