All games have their own particular qualities

I’m still trying to figure out the point your correspondent, Martin Collins, was attempting to make by comparing the various qualities of two quite different field sports from his anecdotal observation of two particular games. (Letters 22 August).

Clearly he believes, from the evidence of the recent Tipperary v Galway senior hurling semi-final and the Manchester City v Chelsea encounter, what football (soccer) lacks in skill, intensity, and sheer nail-biting excitement, hurling makes up for in bucket loads.

And certainly, hurling, played at its best, can indeed be a joy to behold. But a first-class cricket match, played over five days, before attendances well in excess of 100,000 excitable, knowledgable and fanatically partisan spectators can also produce all the qualities Mr Collins attributes exclusively to hurling.

Even those games that leave me baffled and bored, like baseball or American football, can raised the temperatures of a million plus US citizens to fever pitch. And surely Mr Collins will acknowledge that despite the fact that some top- class soccer matches can border on the mundane as far as entertainment is concerned, unlike hurling, this is still the game that is played and enjoyed in every village, town and country, rich and poor throughout the world.

Every field game has its fans and its flaws, it’s skills and its excitement, its euphoric highs and its depressing lows. It brings communities together and it can bring fame and glowing recognition to gifted youngsters from the most deprived of backgrounds.

As a Corkman, the Rebels will always be my first love. But as a believer in hopeless causes, Coventry City, will always be the soccer team that claims my undying loyalty.

Nick Nolan

Ballylanders

Co Limerick