Sir, I have no interest in games, indeed my sole appearance on the competitive games scene was on the second hockey team - a fate, like virginity, worse than death - for my school in 1945. However, the many cold and grubby hours spent on the sparsely grassed rugby field of Blackhall Place did instil the idea that, for many, playing games with ovoid or other balls was a useful way of controlling free time, and for some few would give pleasure.
In recent years I have often read with pleasure the rugby notes penned by your most excellent correspondent Edmund van Esbeck. In these notes he has chronicled, with it would seem increasing despair, the change from a pleasure giving game to a violent professional sport.
Last Saturday you published an advertisement for a rugby correspondent. Is this celebrating the death of rugby and the retirement of Edmund van Esbeck? If it does presage such retirement I take this opportunity to thank Mr van Esbeck for his work in cataloguing the retreat of civilisation in the face of progress in the matter of rugby football.
With reference to the first paragraph above I would like to state that for exercise and recreation I took up hill walking with like minded companions. - Yours, etc.
Ashdale Avenue,
Dublin 6W.