Thank you for your double-page spread celebrating some of the wonderful journalism of David Lacey (Report, 17 November). One day in the late 1960s, while at university in London, I was reading the Daily Telegraph sports section in the university refectory. A fellow student put the Guardian down in front of me, open at one of David’s match reports. He told me to read it and assured me that, having read it, I would only buy the Guardian in future. Fifty-four years later, I’m still buying the Guardian every day.
Graham Russell
Market Drayton, Shropshire
• How very sad to hear the news that the wonderful David Lacey has died. His writing was always the first I would turn to in the sports section. Richard Williams (David Lacey never wasted words – he used them to enrich the reader, 17 November) was spot-on. My favourite was a description of the efforts of Trevor Steven as “Stakhanovite”. I had to look it up, but have used it ever since.
Robert Drake
Oxford
• How sad to hear the news about David Lacey. For many of us, his unmatched football writing was the reason we stuck with the Guardian through thick and thin. His easy style and witty analysis made one turn to him first. He was also impartial and never let his support for Brighton & Hove Albion FC cloud his expertise – a trait lesser football scribes would do well to mimic.
Max Bell
Thame, Oxfordshire
• I was so sad to hear of the death of the greatest football writer. His description of the former Nottingham Forest player Franz Carr as the player “with the Ferrari legs and the Skoda brain” still makes me chuckle.
Kevin Burke
London
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