Who Bought the PM a Copy of “Fifty Not Out?
At last the Government seems to have woken up to the fact that, as Lord Coe recently said “far too many young people are leaving primary schools barely able to climb a flight of stairs”. With the recent announcement of a £150m per annum investment in primary school sport for the next two years at least there is some hope that the appalling state of our kids can start to be reversed. However, it wont happen overnight and will take at least a decade to see any tangible results; for some sports and their local clubs this will be too late.
The scheme will involve lump sums for schools – a typical primary school with 250 pupils would receive £9,250 per year, the equivalent of around two days a week of a primary teacher or a coach’s time – plus a greater role for sporting and voluntary organisations, including individual sporting National Governing Bodies (NGBs), who will increase the specialist coaching and skills development on offer for primary schools. More primary teachers with a particular specialism in PE via a new teacher training scheme, will be needed in significant numbers which, if it allows young people to get off the dole, has to be a win-win.
Although the money seems significant, bear in mind it represents a fraction of the £9bn we spent hosting the Olympics. Still, you have to start somewhere and I am so glad that Dave must have found a copy of “Fifty Not Out” because he clearly read it here first…so read on.
Copies are available via donations to BVCC Juniors.
3 – WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SCHOOL SPORT?
“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body; it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. The relationship between the soundness of the body and the activities of the mind is subtle and complex. Much is not yet understood. But we do know what the Greeks knew: that intelligence and skill can only function at the peak of their capacity when the body is healthy and strong; that hardy spirits and tough minds usually inhabit sound gods.” John F. Kennedy
Many, many moons ago there was a novel concept called school sport which was generally available to all, played and enjoyed by many – loathed by a few as well – and responsible in part for developing personalities and attitudes in preparation for the varying challenges of later life. We were encouraged to be competitive, accept that we would not win every time and understand that complaining just because our toes felt like blocks of ice and were about to fall off, this would not get us injury-based compensation.
Of course exercise and adventure carry some degree of risk, as does life, but did Scott of the Antarctic ever ring Injury Lawyers for Us to lodge his compensation claim? “Nobody told us it would be this cold here, mate!” If we got clattered on the field of play by a heavy tackle or a cricket ball bounced off our skulls we did not blame everybody and anybody and then attempt to sue the school out of its very existence. Life went on more or less unchanged, we were better for it and we were luckier than we could have imagined.
What we enjoyed – or in some cases endured – was far from perfect, especially in the state school system; even in those days the differences in facilities and equipment between the state and private school sectors were considerable. However, at least in the state sector there were ample opportunities to play a wide range of sports encouraged by teachers who, even if they were not officially of a PE vocation, were dedicated and committed both to the school and the kids.
They offered up their time, almost always in a voluntary capacity, to run the training sessions and fixtures that were usually outside of school time. In short they could see the value to the kids, both in a present and future tense, and recognised the big picture a long time before David Cameron mentioned the notion of a bigger society. And without a shadow of a doubt the teachers enjoyed it too – paid or not – because coaching, developing skills, interests and passions within kids is a very rewarding process.
“I’m Bobby Charlton!”
Sadly, that has all gone now, and we are all losers as a consequence. Teachers withdrew their voluntary activities after the militancy of the 1980s – largely in defiance of the Conservative government of the time – and the PE teacher probably died a death from that day on. Blair and Brown’s Labour governments chucked money at the problem in obscene amounts all allegedly in the name of sport. The legacy of this spending spree though was another example of New Labour job creation, pouring money into a black hole and employing a bunch of track-suits who were generally clueless about real competitive sport.
If you have ever seen the wonderful film “Kes” directed by Ken Loach and released way back in 1969, there are bits of those scenes on a freezing, rain-swept school football pitch that will resonate with most of us growing up around those times. Brian Glover plays Mr Sugden, the PE teacher loosely based on every PE teacher I have ever met. Part-hero, part-bastard, part-dreamer, part-failed at everything else at school and therefore never having left the very same school. “I’m Bobby Charlton” exclaims Sugden as he kicks-off in the absence of any referee simply because he could be whoever he wanted to be on that mud-pot of pitch, surrounded by soaked and hapless kids.
Whatever your view of the PE teacher I bet at some point many of you wanted to be him and, undeniably, it was invariably a him. These people had some sort of “coolness” the rest of the staff could not dream of, strutting around in a tracksuit all day, almost attaining rebel status. We all smiled when he turned 40, bought the clapped out, rusting MG as a reaction to the hair starting to thin and trying in vain to impress the Sixth Form girls and yet the PE teacher was simply always a bit of an icon. The point is that the PE teacher was a fit, healthy male role model and most of us aspired to get in a team of some sorts.
I believe the slow death of the old fashioned PE teacher has been the biggest single factor behind the current social ills of growing obesity and inactivity levels, which we will continue to pay for well into the future. As a result of union leaders and politicians being too stupid and selfish to see the bigger picture the result is that over the last three decades our children have become the unhealthiest generations in living memory which is a pathetic state of affairs. And the long term costs are far and away above a bit of paid overtime for running a school sports team.
Tell Them Anything Just Let’s Have A Party
I wrote much of this piece during Olympic year arguing against the notion of a legacy now the party is over although I accepted I was in the minority; simply put, I never believed the whole show would be either worthwhile long-term nor ever fall within budget. Initially projected at under £3bn, the final budget is expected to be between £9bn and £12bn depending on what value is actually realised from the disposal of the facilities post the games, assuming they ever tell us.
As I finished this book, the self-proclaimed City of Sport – Sheffield – has announced it is bulldozing the 21 year old Don Valley Stadium where Jessica Ennis trained because they cannot afford the £600k a year running costs. It is bonkers that we spent all this money on one event and so soon after may flatten a key sporting facility. Given the woeful state of school and recreational grassroots sport, plus the escalating issues of obesity, poor health and inactivity in our young people, could this money have been spent better than on a jamboree for the privileged?
In the last three decades, school sport in the state system has all but vanished. Approximately 93 per cent of children are educated by the state so what opportunities do ordinary children now have to pursue the legacy dream? This issue was constantly ignored as politicians from both parties sought to justify the games, pompously promising a great legacy of sports mad kids. Now the fuss has begun to die down is there any real evidence that habits are changing? And do you think MacDonald’s and Coca Cola were really sponsoring the Games to promote healthier living?
The consequences of the decline of school sport are actually incalculable. The NHS can only estimate the future financial burden in terms of obesity-related illnesses such as diabetes. Equally damaging (and acknowledged in Sport England’s “Strategy 2011-15”) is the impact on wider society. Grassroots sport depends on school sport to survive and many clubs are an essential part of their communities not only for participants but parents, volunteers and social members. If the schools cannot play their part in providing early sporting opportunities then what chance of amateur clubs to develop more specialist skills? The opportunities to interact, to play, to compete and to shape personal confidences for later life are all diminished as a consequence.
The Labour Governments’ attempts to revive school sport were largely through the Sport England funded Youth Sport Trust (YST), which grandly calls itself “the landscape lead organisation for school sport”. Rather pointedly, the Department of Health noted that fitness levels in young children had actually reduced by 9 per cent during 2003-9, despite an estimated YST budget of £1.4 billion. Once again big Government deluded itself with the belief that throwing big cash could create the big impact.
The same agency was also tasked with The School Games but you have to wonder why given that they had achieved so little on such a large budget. It’s hard not to end up believing that this is simply a huge back-scratching, gravy train and a waste of a lot of money. As a volunteer grassroots coach, my perception of the YST is one of an expensive and bureaucratic beast. Additionally, there are so many agencies with different pots of money that it is impossible to see how this can be either focused or efficient. Perhaps some broad figures may help further illuminate the problem:
1 – 33.4 per cent of final year primary school children are overweight or obese;
2 – NHS spending £4.2 billion on obesity related issues;
3 – 90 per cent of today’s children are predicted to be overweight or obese by 2050;
Sticking Plaster Remedies
When I left Barclays in 2011 I spent a year or so working on a part-time basis for a small social enterprise that specifically targeted primary schools on a health and fitness agenda. Their message was compelling and the more I got drawn into the issues of obesity and all the future health problems (and bills) being stored up the more frustrated I got by the failure of generations of kids by successive governments.
Of course the business I worked with was a commercial entity and it had numerous competitors ranging from moderately professionally run to a man with a bag of balls selling his wares to whichever school had any spare funding or was too inept to offer a basic PE provision. And the reason for this effective free for all is simply that, at the most critical point in a child’s life, the provision of PE is a shambles in primary schools. One school I assisted with some free cricket coaching had engaged one of these operators to coach cricket but both its coaches did not know one end of a bat from the other as they were football coaches. It was a complete waste of money and a betrayal of the kids by a lazy teacher.
One of the key, almost unspeakable, issues is that over 80 per cent of primary school teachers are female; I realise England have highly professional and successful international women’s teams in both cricket and rugby but, really, given this situation are these sports likely to flourish on a mass participation basis? Call me sexist but kids need a strong male role model – some more than others with fractured modern day family life – and they get little of this in the early school years.
If we really wanted a lasting Olympic legacy I suggest a much simpler approach than the confusing multi-departmental, multi-agency one we have. At the centre of any strategy has to be a partnership between the schools and the grassroots organisations; clubs that are local to the schools and that are the lifeblood of sport have to be included because Government funded bodies simply do not get it. The role of the PE teacher in primary schools should also be central. If they need to work outside of normal hours to run teams then pay them as the costs today will be far less than the NHS tab in future years. However, it’s not all about sport and should encompass and encourage basic physical literacy and healthy living as a way of life. We need to make kids much more aware of the choices they have even at this early age because they all deserve the chance of living a healthy life. That should be the sole remit and outside of any league tables. As many schools have limited sports space or specialist equipment creating positive links with local clubs is essential but this would also have real benefits for the clubs struggling to attract new members. Ultimately, local communities are the long term beneficiaries here. The YST was tasked with this, but I saw no evidence of it locally and the people I met were simply not competent enough to make this happen. Making this a key role for the new PE teacher would make sense extending the reach of the school into the community with the clubs full of committed volunteers willing to help. As I said, this is not simply about sport though; we have to change our culture and arrest this decline. Reversing several decades of ignorant living is not easy. Sport in isolation is not the answer, but surely being fit and healthy should be everyone’s goal? If sport is a means to an end it’s a hugely valuable one as JFK alluded to above. Now the VIPs have all gone home and the showcase Olympic facilities are quietly being dismantled or sold off, most likely for a fraction of what was promised, it may just be worth the price if we see a radical shift in the way we all live. If we could start with the youngest, those with the least baggage, that way, we might not fail another generation. FOOTNOTE At the turn of the year UK Sport, supported by Lottery funding, announced its funding support programme in the run up to Rio 2016. Some sports have effectively been cut off at the knees with the administrators taking the view that only sports where Team GB appear to have medal opportunities should be funded. This is from the same body that used the mantra of “Sport for All” and further conclusive proof that these anonymous mandarins know nothing about the wider value of sport to ordinary people. As for the Lottery, champion of good causes or so you thought, it’s senior executives have just been awarded eye watering, banker-style bonuses at the same time as announcing that the price of a ticket is doubling in August 2013 to £2. So before you rush down to join the queue at the local newsagent try not to think too hard about the UK’s prime lottery being owned by a Canadian pension fund. You see the gravy train does not just stop at the banker’s station.All In It Together?
The Muppets Are Back!
I tuned into the Budget on Wednesday knowing full well that it would hardly be comforting viewing. However, the conduct on both sides of the House was appalling reminding me of The Muppets and left me in no doubt that we really are in a big hole with the quality of the elected members. Come two years I am not sure who I will be voting for although it certainly wont be New/Old/Who Are We This Year Labour who remain in complete denial of anything that preceded 2010 with their previous two leaders now in comfortable exile.
Although there have been more sightings of Fred Goodwin than Gordon Brown since his demise, Tony Blair contains to travel the world earning millions as a self styled ambassador and does not seem too worried where the cash comes from. Ed Balls is still there though with his selective stammer and even more selective memory, continuing to advocate the Vera Nicholson approach – spend, spend, spend. Rumours that the goalkeeper below was George Osborne are unfounded but Balls was almost shown the red card by the Speaker during the exchanges in the Commons which is a bit embarrassing for one with aspirations of Government.
Meanwhile, on the Government benches there sat the doomed Happy Clappy Cleggy, probably hoping for a cushy job in Brussels in two years time knowing his brief days of power are numbered unless he joins UKIP. Having swung once to the right once then why not do the extra yards if only to save his skin? Whether Dave and George can come up with enough loose change to convince an electorate born and bred on the Handout State before the next election must be in doubt but watching all this just who would you vote for? Vote Gonzo!
Why Idiots Should Avoid DIY Stores
The green fingers are twitching again and, with cautionary and restraining words from my wise old sage, gardening guru Ken at Eccleshill Horticultural Society, I was digging away at the weekend in hopeful anticipation for a golden summer of cropping. Of course, equipment always needs renewing so despite many previous disasters I had ventured once again to the local DIY shed to purchase a new gun for my wiggly hose just in case we have a dry summer! The label claimed “easy, pop-on fixing” which to me meant “expect to struggle for a few hours if you are borderline DIY stupid”.
Having wrestled with the hose for almost half an hour I was just about to give it all up, pen a caustic letter to the CEO of Wickes and bin my hose when up the drive popped my neighbour and her six year old. I explained my predicament, the six year old looked at me as if I was beyond help – fair point in DIY terms – whilst his mum did what it said on the label and clunk-click-pop…sorted!
Scariest Man on TV?
BBC News obviously thinks we all love the arts because, as a regular feature, we have some piece from Uncle Fester’s nephew, Will Gompertz, BBC Arts Editor, guaranteed to last longer than injury time at Old Trafford if Man Utd are losing. Its often five minutes of tripe about something most of us have not got a clue about and will never be bothered to see. Nice work if you can get it.
Why Pensioners Can Climb Stairs
Having a modern, flexible work-life balance demands the same from your local gym and these days there is a huge variety of classes on offer for those that don’t work traditional hours…and one or two that may not even do this. Attitudes to modern training have also changed a lot from the “no pain, no gain” days and that’s why you see the likes of the veteran footballer Ryan Giggs so active – on and off the field…allegedly M’Lud – thanks to the benefits of pilates and yoga.
So this week I changed my routine and Tuesday mornings are now the Desperate Housewives Spin Class – hosted by Tigger Dunn, who were it not for being strapped to the bike would surely eject himself at some point during the class faster than the Space Shuttle – followed by Pensioner’s Pilates which is repeated on Thursdays to a soundtrack of all our yesteryears. I swear I am going to have to start bringing a lighter to ignite as I sway in tune to the sounds of Fat Larry’s Band, Dionne Warwick, Sade and many others from fading night club days. If only I could get a six-pack like our instructor the Ginger Goddess?
The Oldies should really form a new political party; I learnt this week that there are some 14 million of them and, for the large part thanks to an astonishing array of benefits, most really have “never had it so good”. Cameron and Miliband simply dare not upset this powerful block vote so that’s why some 75,000 still get winter fuel allowance even though they live in Spain (courtesy of C4s “Dispatches”) and those that live here, even if they need it or not, are unlikely to give it up.
So pensioners, broadly, seem to have it good at the moment and dear old Auntie Christine at the gym may not need her stairlift yet; I may need help walking though once she reads this!
Dear Andy – Can You Sort This One?
I have coached kids at cricket for fifteen years now giving up a large chunk of my life without being under any illusion that I will be kneeling at Her Majesty’s feet or watching a protege stride out at Lords. Most of us that coach kids do it because we value what we personally derived from participating in an activity regardless of whether we became world beaters. We never get it 100% right but remember we are only willing volunteers far from Andy Flower and the elite.
This winter we have had to contend with the darker side of junior development with a disaffected parent effectively wooing kids as young as thirteen away from our club with promises that are, frankly, fantasy, hugely irresponsible and ignorant to the development of these kids. As coaches we have a duty of care on and off the field and we strive to provide a safe, enjoyable and first class learning environment. That there are idiots out there seeking to pursue wholly personal agendas using teenagers as their pawns should simply not be allowed. At the time of writing we await guidance from on high but, for all we put into the game, now is the time we need support.
Competition Time!
And finally! I was asked the other night the question all cricketers dread…”is cricket better than sex?” Lying there I thought about the Phone A Friend option as I was sure my team-mate Shutty would have a good answer but the longer I stuttered and stuttered, wishing I had worn a cricket box to bed for the first time ever, the harder it became to provide any passable answer.
So for the best answer provided I will offer a free copy of “Fifty Not Out” with the closing date of next Friday. Come on Shutty…now’s your chance! E-mail me via the blog and have a good weekend!
Paul Thompson says
Well written sire! Vote GREEN Party
Shutty says
In response to “competition Time”, Jayne politely informs me there’s room for improvement with both but it’s a close run thing whether I’m in & out quicker at cricket or in & out quicker in bed!! In my defence I don’t believe it’s always an advantage to come first,sometimes coming second with style & elegance can be beneficial when wanting a rematch!!
ps Sex better than cricket as always has a happy ending,for me anyway
Steve says
Just make sure you never chuck the bat in the bedroom.
Marje