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Thanks to the thousand or so responses to our survey two issues ago, Roger Titford can reveal, among other things, whether our average reader would prefer to be David Beckham or Paul Scholes

We asked: "Who did you enjoy watching at Euro 2008 and why?" Four countries stood out. Spain at 33 per cent were top – "loved their reliance on playing passing football with skill and control". Holland came second on 25 per cent – "because they are like us and play the game beautifully". Turkey proved it's possible to change minds and influence people through football: "Every game they were in was an event. Such a combination of character and reckless idiocy." And 15 per cent of readers were all in favour.

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Just what the game needs to reconnect with its traditional fan base: a football-branded motorsport franchise. Al Needham witnesses the inaugural outing of Superleague Formula

It’s an obscenely crass and overblown spectacle that wastes millions of pounds a year on something that its detractors claim is nothing more than a season-long procession that clogs up the TV on Sundays, mainly decided by which teams have the most money. So why would motor­sport want anything to do with football?

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Dear WSC
I thoroughly enjoyed your blow-by-blow review of Euro 2008, noting with some reassurance that I’m not the only one driven to distraction by the so-called expert input of BBC and ITV pundits. However your assessment of the Holland-Italy game surprised me somewhat. The furious and defiant ignorance of the laws of the game displayed by Clive Tyldesley and David Pleat with respect to Ruud van Nistelrooy’s goal were surely worthy of comment, indeed arguably the most damning condemnation of their failure in their roles in providing insight and ­explanation. Instead, you bafflingly seem to support their case and argue, in effect, that an official ought to base an offside call on whether he believes a player is faking an injury or not. Actually he’d already made that call by not stopping the game to permit treatment to the Italian defender in question, who had in effect left the field without permission and thus had to be playing the Dutch striker onside. One shudders to imagine the Machiavellian tricks that some domestic managers would concoct were it possible to play an opponent offside by tumbling off the pitch in a writhing heap. Next you’ll be condemning cliched and inappropriate English attitudes to the German team alongside an anglicised spelling of “dummkopf”…
Matt Rowson, Watford

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There's a new name in the German top flight and it belongs to a village team financed by a software billionaire. FC Hoffenheim's success has not been too popular, as Dominic Hinde explains

Tiny FC Hoffenheim achieved promotion to Germany’s top flight at the end of last season. It should be a story to warm the hearts of football fans everywhere. Yet many believe they shouldn’t be in the Bundesliga.

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Is Sky's subscription-TV dominance about to be challenged? Gavin Willacy explains why he parted with his credit-card details

For seven years, I have proudly resisted the lure of a Sky Sports subscription, defying the seductive glances of pay‑TV. I watched my football in the flesh, and live on the Beeb, ITV and Five. An hour of MOTD was enough Premier League action for me and I was an expert on MLS and Serie A. Sky was a luxury I could easily do without. This summer I was not so sure.

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