I APPRECIATE constructive criticism, especially from someone as intelligent and well read as Heather Causnett, but, dare I suggest the lady doesn’t do irony (such a manly game, Letters, May 26).

Let me say, first up, I love football. My letter (And for the ladies…, May 21) was meant to be a bit of tongue-in-cheek advice for all the ladies out there who don’t.

I used to go to all the Leeds United home games in the early 1970s – the days of Billy Bremner, Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, etc.

Now they were manly men, not like the moisturising, body waxing, spray tanning wusses of today – and it was one of the 1960s footballers (probably Jimmy Greaves) who first conned the phrase “knickers and slippers” to describe the shorts and flimsy boots of today.

Mrs Causnett has certainly never been watching a Premiership or international match lately if she hasn’t noticed the pinks, lemon, blue and orange colours they wear on their feet.

To use footballing parlance, I will be sick as a parrot if England don’t get to the semis and over the moon if they make it to the final – and I won’t be at all sorry if that means missing the surly Scot representing England at Wimbledon!

Cynthia Glasby, Southfields Road, Strensall, York.