Madam, Since the recent, very sad and very well publicised, demise of Ross Town Football Club I cannot believe that this has been allowed to happen with not a whimper from anyone - not one comment from the community.

The ramifications run very deep as our children and grandchildren will have no senior football team to play for locally in years to come. The town, and indeed the whole area, has been very badly let down by our beloved Herefordshire Council and local councillors.

They have allowed our 'Sports Centre' to literally fall apart, having made the ridiculous decision to spend over £100,000 of ratepayers money a few years ago 'patching it up'. The obvious way forward would have been to clear the existing site and to build the twenty-first century facility, which our community of some 12,000 people, deserves.

I spent 13 years of my life in various capacities at Ross Town FC, at no little personal cost, including First Team Coach, Manager and Director of Football culminating in the Club winning promotion to the Hellenic Premier League only four years ago, one League below the highest ranked Club in the area, Cinderford Town FC, only to have to sadly spurn the opportunity to progress due to the lack of facilities. This level was achieved, what's more, without paying one penny to players.

However the team we had built, sadly, but understandably broke up once we were unable to take our hard earned promotion, with lads going off to play at higher levels as they too became totally disillusioned at the lack of progress on the planning front, through no lack of effort on the Club's part. We also reached the Hellenic Cup Final beating Southern Premier Division teams along the way and only lost to another, in the final after extra time.

We had applications for floodlights on Talbots Meadow, the best pitch for miles around, rejected, as the 'fish life would be disturbed' and were not allowed a drinks licence as some objectors said their quality of life would be disturbed by rowdy drinkers.

You really couldn't make it up. When floodlights around the main pitch were rejected, even though they would be used for very few hours in any one year and would have been retractable, we just knew we were fighting a lost cause. Has no-one ever noticed those awful neon lights a few yards up the road. And all this took place after we had had the vision of purchasing some land at Greytree, with a view to building the facilities needed to progress up the Football pyramid. Here we were met with fierce protests from around 0.2% of the community - those living around the area in question who were concerned they would no longer be able to walk their dogs across the proposed pitches, although we had openly said we were more than happy for them to walk around the perimeter, that our 'Stadium' would create problems of noise and huge traffic congestion. Unbelievable!

Once again the powers that be had failed our sporting community by rejecting our plans. I only hope that our hardworking Rugby Club has better luck in obtaining the facilities they need to progress, as they now own that very same land.

I was privileged to work alongside some very talented and driven individuals at Ross Town, most of whom were eventually ground down at the constant rejection of planning applications for facilities which were needed to progress.

In years to come, people will wonder why they, their children, and grandchildren, have nowhere to play senior football. The reality now is that apart from Weston, who have already had to fold their Reserve team, and the tiny hamlet of Howle Hill, my family home, there are no senior teams in Ross, four years after we had the non-league football world at our feet.

You only have to look around you to see how vitally important sport is – I have managed/coached lots of teams and taken them all over this country and every little Market Town, with the exception of Ross, has a long established clubhouse and good facilties. Travel in Europe and even tiny hamlets have superb, floodlit, grass and all weather pitches – why are we still living in the dark ages?

We had ten teams at Ross Town until relatively recently with over 200 people regularly attending our renowned Annual Dinners at the Chase Hotel. Unfortunately some of our number chose to walk away and form their own Junior Clubs, but none of these lasted very long.

I finally 'gave up', admitted defeat and left to join Cinderford Town as Director of Football in 2005/6, but I have to this day remained as a Director of Ross Town and cannot praise Chairman Geoff Jones highly enough for his efforts to keep the club going.

Our Rowing and Cricket Clubs are also doing a sterling job in keeping children off the streets, along with Ian Gray at Tudorville Boxing Club, who as publicised recently, may well lose their facilities very soon. I would remind people that they were turfed out of their previous home at the Youth Centre in Hill Street some years ago for the infamous, but now long-deceased, 'Y-Zone', yet another ill-judged kick in the teeth for local sport! I am a lover of the Arts but that was never going to work in Ross.

I truly hope that Jim Loftus and his aides at Ross Junior Football Club can keep going. I simply fail to understand how we have all failed to ensure that the 'powers that be' understand the vital need to provide Ross with up to date sporting facilities instead of a ramshackle apology of a 'sports centre', which is an embarrassment to all concerned. This dereliction of duty over many generations is an absolute disgrace and should not be allowed to continue!

Chris Parsons, Ross