WHILST sympathising with Judith Conlon (Review, July 10) I do not share her "disbelief". Discrimination by the Gwent Football League is, sadly, entirely predictable.
Even in the 1960s the odd Welsh Nationalist would, without provocation, boast to me of their anti-English ambitions "when we get into power." Subsequently their political clout in a Welsh Assembly is seen locally in such cultural gems as bilingual slogans cut into Chepstow's pavements.
Like the cross-border bus pass saga, Gwent football policy is simply another manifestation and logical result of systematic Cymrification of my, formerly English, birthplace of Monmouthshire. (I leave you to reflect on whether such branding of Chepstow's very landscape might signify either Welsh triumphalism or simply colonial insecurity).
Long experience suggests to me that English people tend to dismiss "English v Welsh" spats as silly, trivial, storms-in-a-teacup. Yet, "The Cymru" cannot share such a view, having relentlessly prosecuted their objectives at every opportunity. In such matters, as Judith Conlon exemplifies, English residents' notions of "five and take" and "fair play" may simply be alien to many in power "over the border." It seemed far more reasonable in the days when we all saw ourselves as just British. Hey ho! That's progress. – Geoff Mead, Tidenham.