Townsend and SRU exploiting parents I MUST write to complain about the amount of money Gregor Townsend Rugby Academy are charging for a three-day coaching course at Dundee University during the summer holidays.
For age group six to 18 years, the cost per child is GBP120.00. I have twin boys aged eight who enjoy playing both rugby and football. That would cost me GBP240.
I phoned up the coaching staff at the SRU and they told me that due to "restructuring" there would be no coaching courses available for kids in Dundee or Angus during the summer holidays.
In the Easter holidays my boys went on a four-day SFA coaching course in Carnoustie - the cost per child was GBP18. The SFA and Dundee United are offering coaching courses for kids this summer, charging just GBP25 for a five-day course.
I am very angry at the Gregor Townsend Rugby Academy charging excessive money for coaching kids.
The only kids who will benefit from this course will be those with wealthy parents, making rugby more elitist. How does that promote the sport?
If the SRU had got its act together years ago and put its money into the schools and SRU coaching courses, Scottish rugby would not be in the state it is today and more kids from all backgrounds would be playing.
And Gregor Townsend would not be charging GBP120.00 per child.
John Murphy, Carnoustie
Friends and enemies
I WOULD like to express my support for the content and tone of your editorial on the rationalisation of scottish football's governing bodies. Scottish football must be the last example of the "closed shop" in the UK.
Before the Executive puts a penny into football we should demand guarantees that the blazered mob will be broken up and a proper pyramid put in place.
Tommy Hughes, Keighley, West Yorkshire What a joke Karen Giles' report on the England v Hungary game was - clearly written by someone that understands nothing about tournament football.
Here's some advice: forget about reporting on English football, you guys just don't get it. You worry about beating the Faroe islands and we'll do the World Cup.
Andrew Webber, Increasingly bemused Englishman in Glasgow . . .
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