I AM writing to express my fury at the letter, "Westhoughton is plagued by louts", March 30.

I am Youth Football Co-ordinator for Bolton Wanderers Football in the Community, and have been, for the last eight months, working with the young people from around the Horwich and Westhoughton area, and they are a credit to your community and themselves.

The project is a multi-agency operation, using the football club as the main attraction, and then looking at educating the young people involved holistically. The police have been in involved, together with youth express and youth services, and we are finally giving the young people of our town the opportunity to participate in society. Every Thursday, in Westhoughton, the lads get together and play football, and their behaviour is impeccable - not to mention their skill levels. What do you expect from people that you constantly push out of society, by giving them ASBOs and just tarring their name?

The reason they cause vandalism is because you don't allow them to make their mark on society, so they have to do it quite literally by graffiti and vandalism. It is the council you want to lambaste with your comments.

The work currently being undertaken in the Horwich area is also going really well, the crime rate has dropped from 18 incidents a night to three while the project has been running on a Wednesday.

I am starting to expand my work to include Monday evening at Westhoughton Leisure Centre between 6pm-9pm, open to any youngsters aged between 13-19, to play football on the all weather pitch, starting on April 23. If you would like to know any more details of what the club do for the community, then call 01204 480601 and ask for details of the work going in your area from the youth football project.

Alex Harvie, Youth Football Co-ordinator