In kids' football, which of the following age groups is the odd one out? Under-sevens, under-eights, under-nines or under-tens?

The answer is under-eights because the rest play seven-a-side matches (under-sevens are friendlies-only).

A directive from the FA means under-eights league football is strictly five-a-side.

I ran the Worthing United team at under-sevens last season and moved up an age group this year. I thought the whole point of football at this level was to get as many boys and girls as possible involved on a regular basis.

By cutting the team size from seven to five, it means six players (if you include both sides and subs) are now not getting a game.

I doubt the people who make the rules have ever run a team at this level and if they have, must have forgotten what it's like. I've got 27 boys at Worthing United who come training whatever the weather and just want to play.

To get them all a game on a Sunday requires the support of some amazing parents as matches sometimes take place at four different locations.

I don't blame Arun and Chichester League officials. They are governed by rules from above. But the buck stops with someone at the County FA or the FA itself.

What do the football authorities want? Do they expect managers to tell seven and eight-year-old kids there are not enough games for them to play in so stay in bed or vegetate in front of the TV?

I want someone in authority to explain why they are stopping youngsters enjoying a game of football and getting some all- important exercise on a Sunday morning.

My e-mail address is at the top of the page.

Alex Higgins is one of the most gifted players to ever pick up a snooker cue. Colour television and The Hurricane revolutionised the sport in the Seventies which, sadly, is now a shadow of its former self.

All right, Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis provided an exciting finish to the 1985 World Championship final. But ask anyone of my thirty-something generation with a passing interest in snooker about the great characters of the game and I'll wager the majority mention Higgins every time.

He may not have won as many titles as he should have done but he entertained us.

Higgins was addictive TV. Snooker on the box today is a cure for insomnia.

Sure, he was a hell-raiser. This is the man who drank a cocktail of fairy liquid and crme de menthe on Oliver Reed's stag night, sorry week. But that was half his appeal. His off-table antics were almost as exciting as his sublime snooker.

Sadly, Higgins thinks he can beat Old Father Time just as easily as when he was seeing off his opponents in the Seventies and Eighties. His proposed comeback will be a freak show. Hard living and a courageous fight against cancer have left Higgins a pale shadow of his former self.

Today he finds himself playing in snooker's answer to the Vauxhall Conference against opponents of a standard he would have beaten with one arm tied behind his back in his heyday.

The media, specifically Murdoch TV, will be out in force and, in a perverse way, probably want him to get drunk and head butt someone rather than get a century break. It would get far better ratings.

And when the circus is over, the TV crews will pack up and Higgins, when any prize money is spent, will disappear back to the gutter.