ROBIN Gilmour's letter (April 29) caught my attention as my daughter has given up football entirely, which is a shame because she enjoyed it and was pretty good at it. She was disgusted at the prospect of slipping, sliding and falling on a playing surface covered with spittle.

Male footballers, it seems, are incapable of running about for a few minutes without gobbing and snorting mucus in every direction. And they do it consistently at every level, whether on a Sunday morning in the Coatdyke Central Junior League or on a global stage for their country.

Statistics show the average Premiership player runs around seven miles per game. Frankly, at a steady four miles per hour walking pace I reckon I can knock that off in roughly the same time without breaking sweat or having to pelt the pavement with spit every few hundred yards.

Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray seem perfectly capable of explosive solo action over five sets, often over four or five hours, without the need to gob on the grass. In fact, imagine the punishment meted out by the All England club if one of them sullied the lawns of SE11 during The Championships.

Mo Farah manages 26 and a bit miles in around two hours and doesn’t gob on the streets of Kensington during the London Marathon.

I have never seen Usain Bolt, the fastest man on the planet, fire off a blob of gob after bursting the tape.

But wee Johnnie from Townhead lets fly the moment he straps on his shinpads.

My daughter has taken up netball.

Steve Brennan, Coatbridge.

Antisocial distancing

POP-UP paths and cycle lanes are to be welcomed, but they are not the whole story ("Pop-up paths and cycle lanes bid to boost social distancing", The Herald, April 29).

Why can't many cyclists and joggers follow, or appear to even understand, two-metre social distancing?

Every day during my 45-minute walk, cyclists whizz past me; if I stretched out my arm at the appropriate time, we would both end up on the ground.

But joggers are the worst. They are coughing and breathing heavily, sending countless little droplets of goodness knows what into the atmosphere, as they pass within a metre (not, or two.)

Andy Stenton, Glasgow G1.

Poetry’s place

ALTHOUGH I’ve featured in Poem of the Day, I often wonder why it's cheek by jowl with the death announcements. Hence the wee nonsense piece below.

Haiku

Poetry isn’t dead

Though it’s on the Obits page

It’s alive and well.

Lydia Robb, Dundee DD5.

The wisdom of age

THESE are indeed difficult and serious times, during which we are becoming more alert to the value of family and the friendship of others. Permit me then, to share a reflection on the lighter aspects of wisdom we acquire along the different stages of life's journey.

We learn, in childhood, not to sneeze when someone is cutting our hair.

We learn, in middle age, to choose our cereal for the fibre, and not the toy.

And we learn, when older, of the frustration of knowing all the answers, but there is no one about to ask the questions.

Boyd Houston, Dollar.