SIR: What is this we hear now - Alan Shearer joined Newcastle in a £15 million world record deal - gulp!

First it was the MPs awarding themselves a 26 per cent pay rise - phew!

Now this. A loser amongst losers (remember England against Germany) has netted himself, along with the other boys, a fortune. Can you imagine poor Di's face now? A common football player is worth as much as me - huh! This bunch are supposed to be the best that we have got. People to look up to, admire, worship, to build our dreams upon. Losers, losers, losers, greedy and spoilt, not worth a penny of anyone's money, all of them. Well there is hope for us yet, we must elect a government of sound common-sense with policies that work. Build ourselves a football team that will beat the rest of the world.

Introduce Charles to a real woman, not a spoilt child in trainers, some-one who will say "Yes Charless, I shall obey", and make a king of him.

This is the Britain the people want. We all want to be part of a winning team again! Francis Paul Farnworth

Willows Lane, Deane

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.