All officials, at any level, are only human, and they all make mistakes. Technology has come in to tennis, fencing and cricket in an attempt to get decisions correct, and to try to ease the pressure and hassle on the umpire or referee. Many people want much more in football, and the way things are going, the umpire or referee could be redundant fairly soon – that would be a shame.

The lack of self-discipline and the increase of objectionable behaviour in football, especially in the Premiership, has now reached the absurd situation where clubs and players are appealing against perfectly good decisions of the match referee, and the governing bodies are upholding these appeals, and the player is let off and the referee or linesman made to look stupid.

A classic example of this was the booking of Chelsea's John Terry against Manchester City.

I think it would be a good idea if all the Premiership and Champions League referees decided to strike for a whole weekend and Monday. It is about time the grossly overpaid and under-achieving footballers and their obscenely-funded clubs were brought down to earth.

Some sports need to take a hard look at themselves; they set a very bad example to the young who are often only too quick to ape the behaviour and awful language of their "heroes".

There are exceptions, but then again we see the problem with drugs. The summer Olympics were a good advert for sport and we should all try to build positively on that.

CJ Burton, e-mail, Scarborough.

Can someone explain to me the sense of Michael Vaughan taking part in a pre-matchday warm-up five-a-side football match? To see someone with his history of knee problems charging about like a 20-year-old looked like an accident waiting to happens.

At the same time could someone explain why for the Somerset match Yorkshire fielded FIVE seam bowlers (not including the regularly under used Anthony McGrath) and just one spin bowler? This resulted in an un-balanced bowling attack with Adil Rashid being bowled far too long on the second morning. It also left us a batsman light which someone seemed too think could be solved by batting Richard Pyrah at No 5. No offence to Richard who is a great trier, but he is not a county No 5 and should not be batting ahead of Gerard Brophy or Rashid.

Stuart Arnold, Priestgate, Darlington.

IT being a gorgeous, sunny day, me and my girlfriend decided to head to Scarborough, specifically to watch Yorkshire's penultimate championship game at North Marine Road. As a Yorkshire fan I also realised it may be my last chance to see Darren 'Dazzler' Gough in action in a first-class game for his county of birth. Not a regular at Scarborough, we were surprised to find ourselves paying the full admission price – £15 each – this despite the game being in its final day and lunch having already been taken by the time we had arrived.

Nonetheless, with a decent looking hamper by our side, we settled down to watch three hours of decent cricket in wonderfully warm conditions for a late September day. If only it could have lasted a little longer...

With the match heading for a draw Somerset declared round about 4.15pm and that was it, barring a brief and cheery 'See you all next season' from the stadium announcer.

My point is this – could Yorkshire not have ventured to bat for an hour or so, at least to give the crowd full value for money? Okay, there was no chance of a win, but why not have a thrash for a short while? Maybe even Goughy could have plundered a few runs by being put in at the top of the order.

What was to be lost by this? There was still a decent-ish crowd there at that stage and another few hours of play could have surely been possible in such great conditions.

Also, on Darren Gough, many people present were disappointed there was no presentation for the old fella after the game, this being his last championship home game for Yorkshire. Or did we miss something there?