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Dear Sir,

Your comments and analysis of British sport (Sunday 20 July ), especially football, revealed the main stumbling block hindering English success internationally, must be because of the great search for foreign players, while neglecting the previous natural source of replacements, namely the so-called ‘nursery team' who used to provide youngsters living near the big cities' football teams.

Yet, should we be surprised at the successes in individualistic sports' I say that history of Britain, shows that we have always produced great inventors, explorers, entrepreneurs, particularly during the 18 and 19 centuries, that led Britain to become the greatest manufacturing and trading nation in the World.

Let me remind you of their names, many of whom are household permanence James Watt, George Stephenson, Michael Faraday, Richard Arkwright and many more, all individuals explorers like Captain Cook, opened up the Antipodean countries of Australia and New Zealand in the South Pacific, with Fiji and Tonger, plus a host of smaller islands. In doing so, the British Empire prospered, to became eventually the greatest ever , and though it is fashionable to denigrate it today, I still believe the achievements far outweigh its faults of course, this has little to do with Sports, except to emphasise my belief in the inherent individualism of the British character, now so sadly lacking in Government though since the Welfare State mentality prevails, which in turn induces the population to adopt a philosophy dependence on the authorities, blaming them if things go awry.

However, one must not be too negative. We have seen a great revival in English cricket recently, following the British Lions successes Down Under. Who knows. Football may also recover sooner than you think.

Yours Sincerely,

Phil Green

El Toro