Martin Greig's article on sporting success (Tuesday, July 8) just goes to show how short the memory of the average sports fan is.

While great individuals usually reach the pinnacle of their sport, there are those who, despite being fantastically talented, never quite bag that elusive major, grand slam, or winner's medal. Many fans can name the winner or winners of a top tournament, but fail to recall those players who consistently succeed away from the limelight.

Such players deserve to be regarded as far superior to the one-hit wonders whose rise is as dramatic as their fall back to obscurity.

That said, I believe it is all about levels of greatness, and those who do achieve their major, grand slam, etc, while consistently winning week in, week out, are therefore at the top of the pile. That is why players like Tim Henman and, to a lesser extent, Colin Montgomerie - because of his Order of Merit titles - can not be regarded as truly great.

Kevin Shelton, via email

Statistics must not be taken so literally
I have to take issue with Neil J McDermott (Fans with Laptops, July 8), who seems to have taken the story of Rangers as fourth-best team in the world far too literally.

What Neil, and many others, do not seem to understand is that these ranking are based purely on statistics, which very often do not correlate with results and performance.

It is why the USA always are ranked in the world's top 10 football teams when clearly they are not.

Whether these statistics have any practical use is another question - and one I am at a total loss to answer.

Graeme Short, Glasgow