As a bookseller who has to stock and very occasionally sell the dreck Rod Liddle so entertainingly describes (last week), I would have to concur with his literary judgment on the vast majority of soccer bios. Bad enough having to watch Rio Ferdinand consistently failing to justify his preposterously inflated salary on the pitch but how much worse to hear about the trousering of a “high six-figure” advance for doing little more than waffling to a hired hack for 10 minutes in the back of a limo between nightclub gigs. Though he mentions it in passing, Liddle underplays the flourishing of a far worthier genre of football writing, which draws inspiration from earlier models such as Eamon Dunphy’s Only A Game, the best most recent example, for my money, being Gary Imlach’s wonderfully moving account of his father, Stuart’s, playing career in the sepia-toned 50s and 60s. If you want to set the droolings of the Premiership derelicts in proper context, look no further than My Father And Other Working-Class Football Heroes. It won the William Hill Sports Book of the year in 2005 and is destined to become a classic.

Bert Wright Dalkey, Co Dublin

As well as being a very fine footballer, it is clear from Paul Rowan’s interview with Kevin Doyle that he is also a very fine human being. How refreshing that this role model has made it in the Premiership and how good for Ireland that he is young enough to be around for a long time to come. I think it should be a matter of Doyle plus A N Other up front. He has the intelligence and the selflessness to work effectively with a fellow striker. I do not think that Robbie Keane is entitled to be considered an automatic selection any more.

Michael Lee, Athenry, Co Galway

Since reading the Football Ireland column (last week) I have been trying — with not much success — to get the ghastly image of Maurice Setters on an ocean liner, prancing about with almost nothing on, out of my head. Good grief, who would have thought that loyal Maurice, side by side with Big Jack all those years, had such stuff in him? You never can tell.

Edward Ryan, Roscrea, Co Tipperary

Write to: Alan English, Sports Editor (Ireland), The Sunday Times, Bishop’s Square, Redmond’s Hill, Dublin 2. Fax: (353) 1 479 2421 or via e-mail: alan.english@sunday-times.ie (include full postal address and please keep letters short)