A privilege to see him play

Pete Godfrey, Stocksbridge, must be an Owl.
Tony CurrieTony Currie
Tony Currie

Tony Currie was one of the most gifted players I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching football since 1948.

Manchester United wanted TC to replace Bobby Charlton, instead he signed a six-year contract for the Blades hoping to spend his career at the Lane.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

They promised to build a team round him but then sold Geoff Salmons to Stoke.

Shortly after, we were relegated and he went to first First Division Leeds, so as not to jeopardise his international career.

You say he only played for money, yet he played in agony against Arsenal with his foot as big as a balloon after a scalding the day before.

As for sitting on the ball you must be the only po-faced fan who didn’t enjoy TC getting our own back on Alan Ball. I saw TC make and win many tackles.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

My favourite player is Allan Woodward, and to suggest he tackled back more than TC is simply ludicrous.

It was a privilege to see such a great player in the red and white stripes.

Richard Bates

Sunnymede, Worksop

Council tax and pay rises

I have just read the article regarding the plans of the Sheffield City Council to raise the council tax by 5.99 per cent.

The letter makes the point that the rate will equate to a rise of approximately £57 a year for band A properties.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It’s strange that the letter chooses to omit the potential rise for other bands. I have just had a quick count up and band B will be around £85.56, plus the amount required as an additional contribution by the fire and police services of £8. So the amount required will be £93.56 by some.

last year the increase was 4.99 per cent, so a combined increase over the two year period is 10.98 per cent.

This is at a time when wages, (if you are lucky to have a wage increase), and even luckier to be in work have risen by 1 per cent.

This is also at a time when the council is paying contractors vast amounts of money to decimate our local neighbourhoods of its greenery and closing the much needed refuse facilities on various days in the week, resulting in tipping in some areas.

Ron Sanderson

by email

The right choices?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It’s nearly that time when parents start getting nervous waiting for March 1, when they find out what secondary school our little darlings will be attending in September.

Have we made the right choice? Do we live in the right catchment area for the best schools?

When you pick the junior school you are thinking long term for the big school later on, though that’s years away.

Well, those seven years at little school have gone and now the big time is here and I feel dead nervous.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Good luck to all children, I hope they get the schools of their choice.

Jayne Grayson

by email

The boring sport

I do like to watch the Winter Olympics, the downhill, slalom, half pipe and luge, but how on earth do the spectators of the curling manage to stay awake?

This “sport” appears to be the go-to game for the BBC when everything else fails.

Let’s ignore the very exciting ice hockey games and go to where GB may just grab a medal for boring the life out of us all!

John Vintin

by email

Gloomy picture

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The gloomy picture Veronica Hardstaff painted of Brexit, (The Star, January 25), prompted me to conduct research based on her concerns. Below are a few of my findings:

Contrary to Veronica’s belief, the Telegraph (27.1.18) claims the EU is no longer our main export market.

In fact, Britain is said to now export more goods to countries outside the EU for the first time since we joined the Common Market.

Veronica claims our universities will lose access to European research programmes.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

However, it is reported that, on 2.2.13, the European Council adopted a Council Regulation1261/2013 whereby countries associated to the EU Research Framework programmes in ERIC (non-EU member states) participating in European research consortia have exactly the same rights and that academic research in EU includes non-EU states.

Indeed, should we be concerned about the fact that it is claimed some universities actively encouraged students to vote to remain in the EU?

Did this account for the fact that, in May 2016, a poll revealed that of 12,000 questioned 81 per cent were set to do just that? Nearly 2 million were eligible to vote.

Veronica says our police will lose access to Europol, but according to Hansard, the UK is looking to draw up an agreement as ‘a critical priority’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Indeed, Bill Hughes (former director of SOCA) says the UK government is the second largest contributor in Europe to the Europol Information Service and provides valuable information to the system. Would the EU readily jeopardise this?

Concern about the financial system is not always shared. In an article in the Express 27.1.2018, Gunter Verheugen, a decade-long ex-European Commissioner said, ‘After Brexit, London will remain the most important financial hub, not only in Europe but worldwide’.

He also conceded that, despite gloomy predictions,the UK economy has continued to boom since the referendum.

Officials working for the European Parliament’s powerful Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs also warn that the UK-based financial services account for 40 per cent of Europe’s assets under management and 60 per cent of its capital markets business. Their secretariat’s paper notes state that UK-based banks also provide more than £1.1 trillion of loans to other EU member states and that ‘a badly designed final deal would damage both the UK and the other member states’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Veronica is concerned about the Irish border but a December 2017 agreement made it clear there will be no ‘hard border’ and that Irish citizens will continue to freely move between the North and the Republic.

Many of the issues Veronica highlights e.g. worker’s and consumer rights, discrimination etc do not derive from Europe, are domestic in origin and will remain (The Guardian 24.5.16). Our Human Rights are also protected by our own Human Rights Act 1998.

Mary Steele

Deerlands Avenue, Parson Cross, Sheffield, S5