SIR - As a supporter of Worcester City FC for 25 years I feel I must respond to G Budd (Letters, Monday, October 28) and also take exception to yet another letter having a go at the club. The club's immediate goal is to get back into the Football Conference, but is ultimately looking to go one step further and win promotion to the Football League.

St George's Lane is currently up to Conference standard, but with ground requirements becoming more stringent all the time, this may not be possible in years to come. In any case, it will never be possible to develop the ground to League standard.

Unfortunately, the club has a crippling debt which hinders development of the squad. Selling the ground would effectively wipe out this debt. The nature of the sporting beast in this day and age is that you need money to achieve some level of success.

A new ground would eventually lead to a better squad, better results and higher attendances. It's worth noting that only two teams from the Nationwide North and Nationwide South leagues had a higher attendance than Worcester this weekend and one of those was Kettering where it was Paul Gascoigne's first game in charge.

If Cecil Duckworth had been a football fan none of this would be an issue. Fifteen years ago, the only people going to watch the rugby were three men and a dog.

The arrival of a sugar daddy has led to 9,000 glory hunters. I wonder how many of them were interested in rugby a decade ago?

GLENN HILL,

Claines, Worcester.