THE views of York City finance director Terry Doyle on Sunday football (Evening Press, August 19) should not be allowed to go unchallenged.

I have not seen any evidence that Sunday football is more popular than Saturday afternoons in the 60 years I have supported the club and hold the long-held view that a winning team draws a crowd and nothing else.

If York have a winning team - and I am glad to see that Billy McEwan's young revamped team are playing such entertaining football in the three games so far - supporters would come, for example, at 4am on Monday. If they are losing they won't come in such large numbers.

Older City fans will recall that for one season the team played home games on Friday nights with no increase in support.

They also had a season - in the early 1960s, I think, - when they played on Saturday nights with a similar response.

If may well be that there is an increase for last night against Woking and against Cambridge on Friday, September 2, but I suspect this will be because the team is playing well and providing entertainment rather than due to the day of the week the match is played.

If Mr Doyle's theories are correct I wonder why none of the other 114 Premiership, Football League and Conference teams regularly play on other than the traditional Saturday afternoons - with the obvious exceptions of Premiership clubs who get some £650,000 per home match from Sky.

Keep Saturday afternoons sacrosanct for football in York.

Martin Durham,

Cherry Tree Crescent,

Fulford Road,

York.

Updated: 10:56 Saturday, August 27, 2005