As an active member of Brighton Mitre Cycle Club, I train at Preston Park cycle track on Fridays, before the club meeting in the cricket pavilion.

It is not unusual to find others cycling around the track or playing ball games in the centre.

The sight of riders flashing around the track can be quite spectacular and people will stop to watch. We all take due consideration for others using this area.

However, on Friday, June 1, the worst happened. I had been riding around the track for some 20 minutes with a colleague, seen by all using the area.

Some kids were kicking a ball around near to the track edge. They had seen us. As we came around a corner, the ball was, unthinkingly, kicked up the track, rolling back down and under my back wheel.

The collision could not be avoided and down I went, landing heavily. The result was a compound fracture of my left arm (both bones breaking the skin) and severe skin abrasions.

The paramedics were called and carted me off to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, where I had a major operation, putting plates in my arm and taking bone from my hip to use as a graft for bone now missing in my arm.

I spent four days in hospital and look forward to at least three weeks off work. The disruption to one's life from such an accident is considerable.

Luckily, I have had support from family and friends. It wasn't the act of cycling or of playing football that was the problem, nor really that the two activities were going on at the same time. It was the lack of consideration for another that caused the accident.

Should we have spoken to the boys, asking them to move? I think not. We would have had an angry parent insisting their child had the right to play where he wanted. Consider also the function of the facility. The track is for cycling around, the centre for playing cricket.

Please, although unfashionable in modern society, can we have a little consideration for others?

-Frank Blake, frank_blake@lineone.net