With regard to the debate concerning reasons why local youngsters don't make it through to the ranks of the Albion, I have a few points to make.

We live in a very soft area of the country. Football comes very low down in the priorities of many youngsters today.

PlayStations, videos and computers have all impinged on the amount of time our kids have to play football.

Primary schools are lucky if they have anybody to teach football and some actively discourage competitive sports.

Add to this that the world seems to be a more dangerous place so parents are loath to let their children out of their sight, you have all the ingredients to breed a generation of couch potatoes.

Then there is the ridiculous head-hunting of players as young as eight or nine and the problem of ambitious parents pushing kids so hard they stop enjoying the "beautiful game".

Ridiculously, many young players are told at 16 or younger they are "not going to make it", when they are nowhere near fully developed.

Often, they are told they are too small when they have years of growing to do. Tell that to Dennis Wise, David Batty or Michael Owen.

My final point is money. A half-decent young player can earn easy money in Sussex playing at a decidedly average level.

Why should they want to push themselves? Very soon, they find they are County League footballers and happy to be so.

Managers and chairmen fuelling only their own egos, mistakenly deluding themselves that the County League is a good standard, pay players far more than the standard warrants, thus creating a cosy cocoon whereby players earn excessive money without pushing themselves to find out how good they really are.

-Paul Hubbard, Westfield Avenue South, Saltdean