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Issue 186 - 10th March 2008

Sporting chance

Friday, 07 March 2008

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Issue 168 front cover Holyrood magazine is the fortnightly insiders guide to understanding the complexity of Scottish politics and policy developments and is widely regarded as being the leading publication for political news and information in Scotland.

Sport's journalist Neil Drysdale examines the relationship between sport and politics

Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, is a master of the trenchant soundbite. Shortly before he accepted the Parkhead job, the former Scotland internationalist was asked for a summation of his country’s abilities in team pursuits. “The truth is that we are not very good at them. Cricket has always been rotten, rugby’s not very good, football’s not very good, anything healthy, we don’t seem to be good at,” declared Strachan. “On the other hand, we are all right at pub games, like darts and snooker. And we are great at heart attacks. In fact, we are world leaders when it comes to heart attacks.”

Fast forward to 2008 and these sentiments are still largely justified. Glasgow may have won the right to stage the 2014 Commonwealth Games, whilst those Holyrood-based politicians who actually care about sport are keeping a careful scrutiny of Westminster’s preparations for the 2012 Olympics in London, but there remains a dramatic disparity between the quality of amenities, funding opportunities, pathway programmes and school-based support which are available to most children in Europe and their Scottish counterparts. Having spoken to a number of leading figures during February, in trying to assess why this should be the case, two baleful realities gradually manifested themselves. Firstly, that though many Scots care about sport, they are less willing to participate in it, and are generally averse to the notion of increased taxation, designed to finance a national upgrade of stadia and the creation of new facilities throughout the country. Secondly, there are the two little words which dominate the thoughts and hearts and minds of so many Scots, to the detriment of other interests, namely “Old” and Firm”; a malaise which goes some way towards explaining why so many Scottish teenagers are Young and Infirm – what does one expect when the newspapers are obsessed with the antics of Glasgow’s twin behemoths, at the expense of a broader brush?
In the wider picture, the new SNP Government has introduced some initiatives, which merit cross-party endorsement. For decades, successive administrations have lamented the dearth of girls and young women involved in sport, and resorted to a litany of self-perpetuating theories for an explanation. (“They’re embarrassed to wear shorts.” “It isn’t feminine to run around a muddy pitch in November.”) Now, however, the Fit for Girls scheme, which includes a much wider range of activities than ever before, from hip-hop dancing and yoga to netball and aerobics, offers genuine alternatives, with schools being financially rewarded for increasing the take-up of physical education. “Worryingly, as young girls approach adolescence, there is a decline in participation and involvement in exercise,” admits the Sports Minister, Stewart Maxwell, who has struggled with some of the demands of his portfolio, not least in his less-than-deft handling of the decision on whether or not to axe the quango, Sportscotland. “Just 40 per cent of those aged between 13 and 15 take part in any kind of exercise for one hour most days, so that has to be addressed. We are very keen to encourage girls to enjoy exercise and activity.”
Yet, whilst few will quibble with this idea, the whole subject of school sport in Scotland is a mystery to those of us who have long campaigned for greater ties between education and health, considering that the link between the country’s chronic obesity and lack of PE is now incontrovertible. As a journalist with Scotland on Sunday from 1988 to 2002, I must have written hundreds of pieces on this matter and raised the issue with a succession of politicians, local authority figures and employees of governing bodies, without ever receiving a straight answer to the question of who was to blame for the collapse of extra-curricular sport throughout Scotland from the mid-1980s onwards. Many have criticised the teachers’ strikes from that period for sparking a collapse in morale – others have asked, not unreasonably, why a volunteer force of educational staff should have been expected to cover up the deficiencies of the sports themselves. But, basically, the time for navel-gazing has long gone, according to those such as John Beattie, the former Scotland and British Lions rugby star, who has worked to preach the gospels that PE is enjoyable, that it can be savoured by all, and that there is life beyond football in his homeland.
“We have to be honest here. Last December, the Scottish Consumer Council published their survey into young people’s participation in PE in our secondary schools, and it made for horrible reading,” says Beattie. “Here are a few of the statistics: “30 per cent of S5 and 42 per cent of S6 pupils reported having no classes in sport and physical exercise. Moreover, “the majority of youngsters (59 per cent) do not participate in school-based extra-curricular sports”, with the report revealing that “only 6 per cent of those in the most deprived areas receive more than two hours a week of extra-curricular sport.” As far as I am concerned, this is a national scandal and you can see the consequences on every street in Scotland, which now has the second fattest kids in the developed world behind America.
“There is some light at the end of the tunnel for sport because the SCC has a number of good recommendations. They say that the Scottish Government should ensure that all pupils have ‘an entitlement to five hours of organised physical activity a week’, and that strikes the right note. But I can’t say I am overly optimistic. The fact is that our population bubble of postwar baby boomers is getting older and our teenagers will be decreasing in number by 2012, so we are fighting against all kinds of social trends. Until we address these, with hard cash, our health problems will continue to haunt us.”
Beattie is not an advocate of the state interfering in what mothers feed their children at home, nor does he feel it is helpful for politicians to preach at parents while refusing to invest in the future. In December and January, for instance, I interviewed half-a-dozen of Scotland’s rising sports luminaries, ranging from 16-year-old swimmer, Douglas Scott and his 14-year-old sister, Corry, to 20-year-old cricketer, Fiona Urquhart, and the most obvious similarity they shared lay in the sacrifices they and their families are undertaking to pursue their dream of flying the Saltire. Both of the Scotts, who are exactly of the age and potential to be chasing medals in Glasgow six years hence, are accustomed to waking up at 5.00am, travelling to East Kilbride for two hours of swimming every morning, before returning home for breakfast, then going to school in Cumbernauld, and combining daily homework with further practice in the pool at night. It is a crazy schedule, yet both teenagers are disinclined to complain, despite receiving minimal assistance with the substantial costs of striving for international sporting recognition. But, in the bigger picture, their privations are symptomatic of how so many Scots seem to win medals at Commonwealth, Olympic and world level, in spite of, not because of the system.
In that context, the thoughts of Phil Anderton, the former chief executive of the Scottish Rugby Union and Heart of Midlothian FC, who has moved to a senior position with the Association of Tennis Professionals, merit a hearing. Anderton, who has worked in the United States (where he devised the famous “Diet Coke Break” advert for the soft drinks company) and Europe, believes that Scotland should follow the lead of other countries and establish schools of sporting excellence, whereby the most talented athletes can – if they wish – sign up at the age of 12 or 13 to a structure which offers them both an education and a state-of-the-art sporting development. The nominations for entry to these centres, which would require massive amounts of long-term investment, would come from the various governing bodies with the students’ progress monitored on a year-to-year basis and with under-achievement, either at academic or sporting level, being discouraged with the risk of expulsion or suspension. “You can spot how academies such as this work in France, for instance, where Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Zinedine Zidane, were all identified as being special talents before they had entered their teens and they were plucked from the normal school system and went on to become three of the best footballers of their generation,” says Anderton. “Whenever I come back to Scotland, I think of all the money that is wasted on advertising campaigns trying to persuade kids to eat vegetables and stop smoking and I reckon that we have to get our strategy straightened out. Youngsters don’t want to be lectured at by men and women in suits, they want something they can aspire to

Youngsters don’t want to be lectured at by men and women in suits, they want something they can aspire to Quotation

. And the idea of being good enough at football or rugby or tennis to advance to a school, where you can mix maths and geography and English with sports science and nutrition and quality time in your chosen sport, has proved a big hit in several places in Europe. So why not Scotland?”
Perhaps, the cynics might respond, because sport is still viewed as a dessert rather than a main course by the cognoscenti. Allied to which, one can also bemoan the under-whelming impact of the majority of those politicians, north and south of the border, who have held ministerial responsibility for sport. Unlike in Australia (and Bulgaria, Canada, France, Austria, Germany, Greece and New Zealand), where the job is one of the most powerful in the cabinet, underpinning a country which would cheer on two flies climbing a wall if one was draped in green and gold, Scotland has thus far been represented by the likes of Frank McAveety (of Piegate infamy), Allan Wilson (Big Idea: A karaoke machine in every pub in Scotland) and Lord Watson (who wound up in jail). None of this trio remotely sets the heather on fire – although the latter did his best for the curtains at the Prestonfield Hotel – and this repeated phenomenon points to the suspicion that too many Scots are 80 or 90-minute patriots, without caring precisely how the nuts and bolts are implemented

too many Scots are 80 or 90-minute patriots, without caring precisely how the nuts and bolts are implemented Quotation

to ensure that world-class competitors keep emerging.
The Scottish Institute of Sport Foundation was established in 2006 to tackle some of these issues and the body’s executive director, Graham Watson, doesn’t shirk his responsibilities in weighing up the present sickly state of Caledonia United. “We started with a vision of using sport as a catalyst for building a positive winning attitude in Scotland, because Bill [Gammell, the ex-Scotland rugby player and multi-millionaire, who has thrown his weight behind the foundation] felt that we were becoming too used to the concept of noble defeat rather than following the Australian philosophy,” says Watson. “In the early days, we published some research, carried out by Stirling University, examining whether we in Scotland had a culture of sporting excellence and the general conclusion was that we didn’t. The key reasons were the lack of competitive sport in schools and the lack of connection between schools and clubs, and there is no doubt in my mind that the whole PE situation is absolutely critical at the moment.
“After all, if the kids don’t play sport at school, the chances are they won’t do it anywhere else. But although there is a broad consensus that our children should receive a minimum of two hours a week of PE, most local authorities are failing to meet that figure and, at the last count, the only council which was actually achieving it throughout the system was East Renfrewshire. Why has that happened? Well, PE has lost its peg, and we have allowed ourselves to be sucked into a downward spiral, which we have only recently shown signs of rectifying. We simply cannot afford to be complacent about the two-hour-a-week figure, either, because in England, they are already aiming towards five hours and Gordon Brown has made it clear he wants to see that realised in the build-up to the 2012 Olympics. We have a long way to go, just to catch up, let alone advance.”
The message could hardly be clearer. Namely, it will be futile to fling hundreds of millions of pounds at Glasgow’s Games, if a proper, fully-integrated pyramid structure doesn’t extend from the grassroots to the elite, providing every talented competitor with an equal opportunity to flourish. The concern among critics is that Sportscotland, an unwieldy agency with a capricious tendency to funding individual pursuits, is ill-equipped to rise to the challenge. But, given Stewart Maxwell’s decision not to replace it with a more dynamic organisation, Scotland will have to make the best of it.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for Scottish sport and there is definitely greater scope for getting money into sport than there has ever been,” says Graham Watson. “But it is very important that this isn’t just about two weeks of competition in 2014 and that we show the required urgency now to make these Games a pivotal experience for Scotland. I believe we can do so, but the key lies in forging partnerships, creating pathways between the private and public sectors, and living up to our claim to be serious about sport.
“An audit conducted in 2006 by Sportscotland concluded that £300m needs to be spent every year for the next 25 years to bring the country’s sports facilities up to scratch. The audit also found that almost three quarters of grass pitches in Scotland need upgrading or replaced to make them of a suitable standard.”
Ultimately, Games without frontiers can’t be organised on the cheap. For too long, the prevailing culture in Scotland has been one of buck-passing, penny-pinching and settling for second-best, which explains why so many of our leading performers – Chris Hoy, Colin Montgomerie, Andrew Murray – have had to travel to prosper. Unless the home front is sorted out by the Government, Scots will always be stuck in the slow lane.

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