IN football you always get the magic trio.

Think Ball, Harvey and Kendall of the Everton side of the 1960s, Charlton, Law and Best of the 60s United side and Bell, Lee and Sumerbee from the City side of the 70s.

Whenever you talk about the greats of 50s football, you can't help but mention Lofthouse, Matthews and Finney.

Now, although these three in particular have one thing in common - they were all great players for club and country - there is another thing that they should be linked by. They should all have been knighted.

We all know of Sir Stan and Sir Tom but the thing that really does annoy me is that with every Queen's birthday and New Year's honours list, we never see our very own Nat Lofthouse.

Nat has been a fine ambassador for English football as well as an outstanding servant of Bolton Wanderers. Although I'm in agreement with Bolton honouring "Sir" Nat with a statue at the Reebok, which seems to be a growing trend with a lot of clubs these days, I think that the people of Bolton should get on to their MPs and their local paper to push for Nat to be knighted in the forthcoming New Year's Honours List, never has an honour been so long coming.

Craig Maher

Barnacre Avenue