I write in reply to Andy Burnham's rather rash comments ( Journal, 8th March) about lottery funding being biased toward Rugby Union clubs against Rugby League clubs.

In the article Mr Burnham quotes that Union clubs have a 50per cent success rate whilst League clubs have 62 per cent application failure.

This I doubt has anything to do with bias and has everything to do with preparing a successful bid via Sport England's rigorous application procedures. Secondly the figures quoted by Mr Burnham state that RU clubs have received £38m in lottery funding while RL clubs have received only £12.5m, well when you work out that BARLA has a playing membership of 25,000 players and the English RFU has a playing membership of 525,000 it works out that RL clubs receive £420 per head more than their Union counterparts.

Figures and statistics can be misleading and in Mr Burnham's case used to be slightly inflammatory. I would suggest Mr Burnham put his weight behind helping our local clubs whether it be Union, League or any other sport in preparing quality bids rather than slagging off an organisation like Sport England who do a good job for all concerned.

My club Tyldesley RUFC, recently moved to a new purpose built rugby complex. The entire cost of £1.1m was funded by the sale of our old ground and existing club funds. We received not one penny of funding from any

organisation. Our hope is to redress this in the coming months and years as we seek to continue to improve our facilities to host not only men and women's rugby union but soccer and possibly rugby league in the not too distant future. The support of local MPs like Mr Burnham would be greatly appreciated.

Howard Hughes,

Secretary,

Tyldesley RUFC