Letter from Danny P

I FEEL that your sports section paints a very negative view of British sport. Your articles are always so glum in their outlook! It is this point I wish to expand on.

Ella Spencer’s ‘Sporting Zeros’ article conveniently misses out many of the country’s sporting successes in the past year, focusing on the sports which only feature in the red tops. Of course England’s male footballers are sinking to new depths, but Ms Spencer fails to mention our ladies, who performed admirably in China and got past the group phase against expectations.

Whilst Lewis Hamilton and the rugby boys were both runners-up in their respective competitions, I bet no one in the entire nation would have thought a rookie driver or a team of ‘no-hopers’ would have reached the final hurdle. Whilst overall victory just escaped them, the platform is set for silverware in the future.

Though I could continue with near misses, it escaped the author’s attention that British sportsmen and women were pretty successful in other sports in 2007. The cricketers won a one-day series for the first time in Asia for the first time in two decades. The Great Britain rugby league squad completed a series whitewash against New Zealand to win a series for the first time in fourteen years.

James Toseland won the 2007 World Superbikes Championship; Justin Rose won golf’s Order of Merit; Joe Calzaghe is undisputed super Middleweight boxing champion; David Haye is WBA and WBC Cruiserweight champion with Ricky Hatton’s fight to come; Christine Ohurugu won a gold at the World Athletics Championships after her long ban; Beth Tweddle and Marissa King won gymnastics golda in Glasgow last week.

The next decade promises to be the most exiting in British sporting history. The Olympics, Commonwealth Games, two Ryder Cups and Cricket World Cup will all be hosted on these great shores, and hopefully we will also have the 2015 Rugby World Cup and 2018 Football World Cup. The future is very bright for British sport; please stop the pessimism!

Danny P