Sports: Activity and Proactivity
By Emma.
I’ve been thinking for some time now, that the Minister for Sport is in the wrong department, and that this is symbolic of the way we think of sport in this country. This is btw no reflection on or any individual minister, it’s about ideas not personalities (remember that concept!!??).
Culture and Media are largely passive activities – though a few of us get involved occasionally (let’s face it – we’ve all “Put a band together” or acted in a school play or some such) culture and media – from Coriolanus to Coronation Street – are primarily about passive intake.
Having sport also be part of this department of passive enjoyment is symptomatic of the way sport is seen as something done by professionals for our entertainment, rather than something done by us for our enjoyment and health benefits. the only real reason to have sport as part of the DCMS is to look at TV rights, which could be equally dealt with by the media side of the ministry.
I believe that the sports minister should be moved to the Department for Health. For too long the DoH has been seen as almost entirely reactive – about hospitals and GPs and treatments. There should be far more work done though on prevention and intervention. Sport is a great way of keeping and getting fit, and if it becomes part of the DoH we can stop focusing on the needs of those at the top, and put our energies into encouraging a much broader uptake of sport.
Tags: sport
Wednesday, December 8th 2010 at 07:58
The average sport field now cost a local football team on average £1,700 to hire a year, if you have four teams most have more it can get very expensive.
In my area the rent on fields are now one of the highest in the land, although you can get £500 grant if you pass a long list of requirements meaning it harder now for new teams.
Under labour as a disability sports coach I use to get £500 a year to buy equipment under that great leader Gordon brown he reduced that to £30 a year saying the money would be better used for the Olympic games, I had to give up going to schools to teach disabled kids some who had never played any sports, because it ended up costing me £300 a year buying equipment and fuel cost.
Sport in school is without doubt at it’s lowest levels ever.
Wednesday, December 8th 2010 at 08:48
This post was more a discussion of how we view sport in policy making than the dreadful cuts to the SSPs. However, shifting the emphasis on sports policy from passivity to activity would – in my view – raise the profile of sports for groups whom have not been the focus of sports policy thus far.
I will give you a piece of well meant advice. Whether you choose to take it or not is up to you, but I do offer it with good intent:
If you have a good case to make, don’t overegg the pudding.
What I mean by this is that I am not an expert in disabled sports policy. Your anecdotal evidence about your team was compelling, but you ruined it when you said “Sport in school is without doubt at it’s lowest levels ever”. The problem is that this is provably untrue (here is the Channel 4 News fact check on just this: http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/school-sports-cuts-david-camerons-selective-statistics/5114 ).
The problem is that I like most people will disregard things I know are wrong, and it makes your evidence less trustworthy. That’s fine if you just want to have a rant – and we all want that at times, no judgement implied. But if you are more interested in changing minds & policy, you sabotage your argument with falsifyable hyperbole.
Anyway, patronising civics lesson over. Good luck with the team if you resume in future.