Sir, Dundee United fan Barry McHugh has been banned from football matches for three years for encroaching on to the pitch and celebrating a goal in the club’s European match against Moscow Dynamo at Tannadice.
Football liaison prosecutor Vicki Bell says Barry was both irresponsibleand reckless and brought shame on our national game and that a zero tolerance approach to any football related disorder is adopted.
Mr McHugh’s “crime” in running to join the players at a goal celebrationis hardly the crime of the century and if Vicki watches other games from across the globe she will see a lot worse behaviour by fans.
I also saw in The Courier a report of a mass brawl with players at an ice hockey match between Fife Flyers and Dundee Stars.
Of course, no action by police or prosecutors in that instance.
Yet if it had been footballers…?
George Aimer. 82 Kinghorne Road, Dundee.
Wide of mark on energy
Sir, Alan Bell (Letters, December 17) is to be admired for his continuing support for the Donald Trump line regarding wind turbines, however, on other forms of energy he is wide of the mark.
I doubt whether his views on “clean” nuclear energy would be shared by the people of Chernobyl or Fukushima, or even the people of Sellafield who will have ever-increasing amounts of radioactive nuclear waste buried beneath their feet for the next thousand years.
As for fracking to release gas from shale deposits, I wonder how the people of north-west England who experienced earthquakes from exploratory drilling, or the lady in Pennsylvania who could light the methane emerging from her water tap, feel about that?
Alan’s generous suggestion of four solar panels on every pensioner’s house might just work in Kirriemuir but could prove unrealistic for those in Glasgow living in flats or multi-storeys.
For myself I prefer the safer option of carefully-sited windfarms, the further development of wave and tidal power and the whole backed up with pumped-storage hydro schemes, the latest of which are planned for Loch Lochy and Loch Ness.
John Crichton. Northampton Place, Forfar.
Selective with his criticism
Sir, Cllr Willie Robertson is very selective and partisan in his criticism of proceedings at First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood. Each week we hear the exact same inane and pointless opening questions from Johann Lamont, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie about when the First Minister will next meet the Prime Minister or Scottish Secretary, or what issues will be discussed at Cabinet.
These waste valuable debating time within the allotted half-hour timeframe and, irrespective of whatever the nature of the response from the First Minister, these opening questions are never followed up by relevant associated supplementary questions. But no acknowledgement of this useless strategy by the opposition leaders from Cllr Robertson.
Cllr Robertson also fails to reproach in any way the opposition leaders’ consistent tendency to pose their “substantive” questions to the First Minister in a generally nasty, personalised, manner.
“Playing the man, instead of the ball”, as they say in football parlance. Behaving in an “honourable” manner can be interpreted and demonstrated in various ways.
When he next puts pen to paper to criticise someone, perhaps Cllr Robertson should practise what he preaches and adopt a less biased and blinkered tone.
Brian McGarry. 37 Preston Crescent, Inverkeithing.
New services already in debt
Sir, It appears the new national police service of Scotland will start with £100m of debt while the new national fire service will start with a debt of £71m.
Perhaps it is pure coincidence that major renovations and refurbishment are currently being undertaken on council offices/buildings.
Is this in preparation for a national local authority, accompanied by another huge debt?
John McDonald. 14 Rosebery Court, Kirkcaldy.
Made a great contribution
Sir, Your news item on the sad death of Professor Gavin Mooney in Tasmania mentioned he had been director of a research group in Australia, but not that he had previously been director of the Health Economics Research Unit in Aberdeen and one of the founding fathers of health economics in Scotland.
Some people in the NHS in Tayside will remember him teaching on the HERU health economics distant learning course weekends. He also taught on the Dundee University Master of Public Health course.
A great lecturer and researcher, he will probably be remembered most for his part in establishing health education as an academic discipline in Scotland.
Prof Norman Waugh. Division of Health Sciences, Warwick Medical School, Coventry.