SPORTS LETTERS

Ode to joy

From Mr D Foster

Sir: The European Ryder Cup team have done more in a few days to get the idea of a United Europe across to the public than all the talk by politicians and businessmen in the last 20 years.

For the first time I've have been rooting for a European team that has shown it can take on the United States and win. This surely is what it should all be about. It is time the politicians took time to lift their eyes from the constitutional wrangles about Europe, and told us with enthusiasm about the real and tangible gains that are there for the making.

Yours sincerely

DAVID FOSTER

Ipswich

Off-key on the pitch

From Dr JMA Kilburn

Sir: Nowadays the off-the-field machinations of rugby football (both codes) seem much more absorbing than the players' offerings every Saturday afternoon.

If last weekend's game between Leicester and Bath is anything to go by, Rob Andrew's head-hunting, Jonathan Davies' future, Rob Carling's captaincy and the rows in France and Australia were much more exciting than Adedayo Adebayo's solitary (and doubtful) try.

Yours faithfully,

Dr JMA KILBURN.

Stat-ic eccentricity

From: Mr K Baynton

Sir: Can I suggest that Matt Tench and Glenn Moore be sent to the "Stato School of Statistics" before being let loose on interpreting survey results in future?

The data from the FA Premier League survey does not show that football supporters are a far cry from cloth caps and Bovril.

I presume that the survey made the facile comparison of fans' salaries with those of the entire UK population. All it does is restate information on fans' ages and sex: football fans are more likely to be adults than children, of working age than retired, and male than female (fewer women than men work outside the home and a third of those who do earn less than pounds 10,000 a year compared with only 13 per cent of men).

Moreover what is important in a survey's sample is not so much its size but that it is representative. By leaving distribution to the clubs and allowing a response rate of only 25 per cent, the results are likely to be horribly skewed. This survey may be the most comprehensive ever conducted but the methodology is unreliable.

And anyway, who says that high earners don't drink Bovril?

Yours faithfully,

KELVIN BAYNTON

London SW2

Letters should be marked "For publication" and should contain daytime and evening phone numbers. They should be sent to Sports Editor, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DL. They may be shortened for reasons of space.