Letter: Sporting chance

For years, I have opposed Gaelic subsidies, seeing it as unreasonable to pay people to speak a language there isn't much call for.

By extension, I also opposed the rather expensive quango which is the Gaelic Board and the recently-established BBC Alba TV station, funded by the licence payer and the Scottish Government.

However, I like watching Scottish rugby and BBC Alba has signed an exclusive deal to show Magner's League rugby in Scotland for the next four years (your report, 25 August). Normally, one would expect the audience for Gaelic content to be so small that eventual closure for the station would be inevitable. Now there will probably be more rugby fans watching than Gaelic speakers.

And then there's football, cricket, snooker, and bowls, fans, all ready to be deployed as Gaelic audience fodder. There's a simple answer to this nonsense: keep BBC Alba; just drop the Gaelic bit.

CRAWFORD MACKIE

Loughborough Road

Kirkcaldy, Fife