I did a lot of comprehensive school cricket in the period 1977-1990. I was the vice-chairman of a national cricket association.

At every turn we were frustrated by the Government. It sold sports grounds. It cut ground staff facilities. It protected the vandals who dug up the pitches.

It alienated the teaching force whose goodwill was and is essential for the enormous expenditure of time and effort involved in team selection and the conduct of fixtures at inter school, inter-county and international level.

The Government counted everything, and put a price on everything. It made every teacher who worked for school sport feel that he or she was a mug for doing something for nothing.

Now the Government has woken up to the fact that school sport is very nearly dead. It wants to inspect the corpse it murdered. I call that wickedness.

Hugh D J Nicklin Address supplied