I recorded the process and it produced a macro like this:

Sub Macro2()
With ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:= _
"URL;http://www.mydearfriend.net", Destination:=Range("D4"))
.Name = "www.mydearfriend"
.FieldNames = True
.RowNumbers = False
.FillAdjacentFormulas = False
.PreserveFormatting = True
.RefreshOnFileOpen = False
.BackgroundQuery = True
.RefreshStyle = xlInsertDeleteCells
.SavePassword = False
.SaveData = True
.AdjustColumnWidth = True
.RefreshPeriod = 0
.WebSelectionType = xlSpecifiedTables
.WebFormatting = xlWebFormattingNone
.WebTables = "1"
.WebPreFormattedTextToColumns = True
.WebConsecutiveDelimitersAsOne = True
.WebSingleBlockTextImport = False
.WebDisableDateRecognition = False
.WebDisableRedirections = False
.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False
End With
End Sub

You could use vba  to put whatever values you wanted into this command and it
would probably work to put the data  into your spreadsheet.

I created my macro with your code  and it worked as you said.
Then I replaced your URL with one which is typical of the pages I want
to download from the net. When I run it there are no error messages,
but when it is finished there is no data  on the sheet. Any idea
what's wrong?

I tried inserting the page  you are referring to. Excel would not select  just
the table but I was able to import  the whole page.


I think Excel may rely on the page having named tables and the score table has
no name. (To generate the web  page it does not need one)

The first sub below is the one originally generated.

Then I tried a bit of editing and came up with the amendments (marked with
'*** at the end of the code  line) which actually just call in the data
required (I think).

If all the pages you are calling are in the same format this approach may be
useful to you. If they are all different then it will be a total pain to try
to set them all up.

the code  you just posted meets my needs perfectly--once I get
the entire page(s) loaded onto the worksheet, I can easily add macros
to chop off the garbage and manicure what I want to use.

That is really good.

Now ...
What have we learned?

I hope you have learned that when you need to do a macro for a repeated
action, you can record the macro while you do the action manually and then
alter it to suit. That is all I did.

What have I learned?

(1) Perhaps I should teach rather than providing answers. If I had told you
to record the macro you would probably have arrived at a working answer faster
than I did.

(2) I have also learned a lot about the workings of the web  data import
function.

I'm going to work on this
today and will post my results--Again many thanks!

Unfortunately I have the same problem whether I open the text file in Excel,
or import  the data  using the wizard. If I import the data in general format,
I get the #NAME? error, and if I import it in text format I don't get the
error, but the numbers end up being formatted as text and I need to convert
them back to numbers.

The solution would be simple if the text and numbers ended up in separate
columns when I import the data, because then I could treat the columns
differently according to their specific content, but unfortunately there
will always be text in the same column as the numbers.

I had a personal reply from PY & Associates who have asked me to give them
the first 10 lines in the text file as an example (attached is a very
simplified sample of the sort of data involved), so I'm hoping they may have
an idea as to what I can do.