What Can We Do To Improve Sport In Scotland

[wee jim]

I came to the conclusion some time ago that Team Scotland would not be going anywhere anytime soon. You can point the finger at the manager for some aspects of the game. You can blame the players, but as far as I can see they try their best. They are just not good enough.

 

Scotland is an unhealthy nation that does not value health and fitness. And for as long as the government, the ruling sporting bodies and our primary schools don’t get the finger out and take health and fitness seriously and invest money to provide decent all weather sporting facilities and improve the eating habits of our young people we will continue to be a second rate sporting country. As it happens I think the whole of the UK suffers from a similar malaise.

 

Just take a look at the current hot topic about the pies at Firhill. Okay you might say what the hell is that got to do with Scotland and sport but it is indicative of our attitude to healthy eating.

 

Some may say, but Scotland has just produced Andy Murray. Well not quite. Andy had to leave Scotland at an early age for Spain to develop his tennis skills.

 

I don’t like being such a cynic but even if there was a ground shift in attitudes today it would take a decade to produce results.

 

What can be done to demand that changes must be made?

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Just a thought but if more people took up sports, fitness regimes or other activity pastimes there would be less time for many to allocate to spectator sports like watching the Jags and complaining about the pies.

[twinny]

I'm of firm belief that extra time spent in PE in school (even at the cost of less time in more 'academic' subjects) can lead to improved academic performance. There is already a wealth of evidence in support of this.

 

Currently a great deal of time spent in PE classes is spent with teachers filling out paperwork, organising equipment, travel etc. One major problem is that the curriculum rarely gives time for double-periods of PE any more, and as a result a class that has two periods of PE a week will spent twice as much time as they should getting changed and arsing about on their way to and from PE lessons (which the PE teachers need to take into account). This happens because head teachers are under pressure to deliver results in academic subjects and see PE as less important.

 

I think it is also important for schools to forge links with local sports clubs. A friend of mine has recently told me he expressed desire to train in athletics to our school's PE teachers. They basically brushed him off and didn't give any advice. It would have been great if they could say, if our athletics doesn't suit (it only consisted of cross country training) there are these athletics clubs at Kelvin Hall and Victoria Park. Similar could be done for a wide range of sports. PE teachers need to cater for a wide range of abilities, mainly encouraging those who can't be arsed or aren't particularly skillful and have less time to focus on those who could be elite. In order to become elite you need extra-curricular training with a club, however a school should be responsible for helping teach a child healthy behaviour and show them the wide range of activities that are available.

[jonboy]

Improve the weather for a start.!

I was out in Rio, Brazil last year at a hotel down in the Cocacabana, and looked out my window at 6 in the morning to see the beach full of runners, volleyball players,and footballers young and old practicing their skills.before heading off to work. This all happening at the crack of dawn. Brazilians don't have much in the way of financial resources but they do have an abundance of good weather that get folk out early. We don't have that here in Scotland.

What we do have is an abundance of Fast Food joints and Mothers prepared to kick their kids out to school in the morning with a can of redbull and a packet of haribos!! So what chance you got.

[crazy davie]

Sporting clubs should be encouraged and supported by local councils and governments. They should be investing in facilities and providing funding for training equipment and so on. Too much of our money is wasted on criminals, junkies, the NHS, defence, etc etc...

[Norgethistle]

We should ask Siggey he has the best ideas

[The Mighty Quinn]

Ban playstations and xboxes. Parents have to take the intitiative and go out and take their kids to the park for a kick about or whatever.

[Norman]

I think the problems that exist with sport in Scotland are that every possible sport wants their share of the available funding and that many sports that receive the funding are poorly organised or not really suitable for our climate.

 

My solution:

1. Select a few sports that don't require to be played outside, don't require expensive equipment, ideally can be played in a gym hall and are more suited to our national "type".

2. Set up 5 centres for excellence in these sports through the country, all overseen by one organisation per sport.

3. Provide targeted funding for these sports, even if it is to the detriment of more popular sports.

 

If we do want to improvement in football we need to have our children playing on good surfaces during the school summer holidays, instead of on quagmires during winter weekends when they're still recovering from a week at school.

[lady-isobel-barnett]

One of the problems I've come across re out of school sports initiatives for kids like summer football weeks etc is that parents use the facilities as a cheap babysitting service. You as often as not get kids attending that are at best disinterested and at worse disruptive simply because their parents coerced them to go along. You end up getting a lowest common denominator situation, which is frustrating for the kids wanting to take the course seriously as it is for the coaching staff.

[Guy Incognito]

It is easy to point the finger at the authorities and say there are not enough facilities - which is true - but simply building facilities won't solve the problem. A complete change in mentality is needed and that has to come from people themselves. Binge drinking and obesity are virtually socially acceptable in this country. Look at the number of fat children you see at Firhill and then think about how many children were fat when you were their age. And these are kids who are interested in football - there must be some good players in there!

 

I read somewhere quite recently that staff at one health authority in Scoland were discouraged from describing obese children as obese, for fear of offending their parents and stigmatising their children. Personally, I think I would be offended too, initially; but when I had finished being offended I would bloody well do something about it! Raising a child on a diet of takeaways, sugar-laden processed ready meals and computer games just isn't the norm in simialr countries to Scotland - I am thinking of places like Denmark and Norway here, countries that have a similar climate to ours (the poor old weather often gets the blame for people shovelling bags of chips down their gub).

 

I think the government's introduction of minimum alcohol pricing is a positive step towards addressing the country's problem with alcohol, although I am sceptical that it will succeed.

 

The OP mentions Andy Murray and suggests that his success came about as a result of leaving Scotland. That is only partially true, however, because Murray will still have learnt his basic skills in Scotland. The root of his success lies in the parental encouragement he received. Not every child is sporty and the vast majority will not go on to become sports stars. However, there is no reason why any child in a developed country like Scotland shouldn't at least be healthy (underlying medical issues notwithstanding). We are lucky to have a high profile successful sporting figures like Andy Murray and Chris Hoy, because at least they serve as role models for the generation coming through.

[Jackthejag]

the main problem is that me and friends often used to go play football once a week at scotstoun leisure centre, but the cost of the pitches are that expensive that you could never afford them and just sorta sneak in. but eventually ended up getting chucked out and all these top class pitches lying empty because nobody can afford them

[crazy davie]

the main problem is that me and friends often used to go play football once a week at scotstoun leisure centre, but the cost of the pitches are that expensive that you could never afford them and just sorta sneak in. but eventually ended up getting chucked out and all these top class pitches lying empty because nobody can afford them

Exactly right. The cost of the let should be subsidised by the tax/rates payer. But as I mentioned, too much of that money is mis-spent. If kids want to play football - or any sport - we should be doing our damndest to make sure they can. Why spend money on criminals, junkies, and so on when it can be spent on kids playinog a sport.

[1 John Lambie]

Get kids out playing again, whether that's football or hide & seek it doesn't really matter! Nearly every open area of grass you see nowadays has a 'no ball games' sign on it, what a joke.

 

Councils should go round & take 99% of these down & slowly but surely kids might actually venture over to a bit of grass with a ball without the fear of the local grump phoning the polis on them.

[McKennan]

Hmm ... so, the OP refers to sport and we're discussing football. Okay, I get that. Our bad habit and all.

 

Let's just remember that Scots are pretty good at sports. We've been hard to escape for the past few months. We seem to do well in individual games but suck big ones in team sports. That's a bit of a stinker when it comes to football.

 

I don't really get the connection between improved diet and improved sporting achievement when Scottish football teams excelled on the European and world stages back in the heyday of fried food, fags and lager as the breakfast of champions before a shift down the pits. Perhaps the relationship is more complex than that.

 

Neither am I convinced by the Xbox explanation. I assume kids in Spain, the Netherlands and Germany have these devices as well.

 

Maybe we're just a nation of lazy ********? There's no point in squealing about lack of facilities when people don't use them. It's like the arguments we see here about building stands the club doesn't need, can't fill and will never use.

 

My tuppenceworth, for probably the millionth time, is that Scotland loves football - it just doesn't love Scottish football. It's like the tartan cringe reborn.

 

As to the Scotland national men's football team, its biggest handicap is that it's led by a man who has achieved next to nothing and appears frightened of his own shadow. I'm not a gambling person but if Jackie Mac were to pit his Jags team against Levein's Scotland, I would break a lifelong prohibition and put a fiver on the Jags at William Hill.

 

Just a closing thought - when was the last time a Scottish footballer achieved and maintained the level of respect and recognition enjoyed by Andy Murray and Chris Hoy? I think you're looking at at least a generation ago.

[sandy]

We should ask Siggey he has the best ideas

 

[Watson Towers]

Improving Scottish sport, generally? Dunno, sorry.

 

Improving Scottish football? Well one thing we could do is to start to ween ourselves off the obsession with the English game. How many column inches & how much money via Sky subbies and purchase of jerseys is leeched out of Scotland every year to fund that overpriced nonsense down south?

 

I know a number of people who are very occassional fans of a team in Scotland, but who make trips to see their "big" team down South. It's more than that, though: I'm not saying that every time you watch Match of the Day you are pissing on the game in Scotland, but our obsession with English football is a really unhealthy example of the fact that, if we do want to play with the big boys - both in terms of football and as a nation - we really do need to be a bit less obsessed with West Brom, Norwich and Reading.

 

If football in Scotland is crap, it's because we as a nation don't give it the support it needs; if we want a better league and a better national side, maybe we should be nurturing the game here more - and leave the glories of the Premiership in the past.

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Just a closing thought - when was the last time a Scottish footballer achieved and maintained the level of respect and recognition enjoyed by Andy Murray and Chris Hoy? I think you're looking at at least a generation ago.

Denis McQuade .Or am I being too parochial?

[Juan Kerr]

Improving Scottish football? Well one thing we could do is to start to ween ourselves off the obsession with the English game. How many column inches & how much money via Sky subbies and purchase of jerseys is leeched out of Scotland every year to fund that overpriced nonsense down south?

 

My apologies that this is not particularly relevant to the main thrust of thread but on the above point, I had occasion to go through some archive records of The Glasgow Herald a couple of years ago. Reports from nearly 100 years ago featured the English game heavily. Match reports from the likes of Bolton and PNE were more in-depth than the majority of the Scottish games played the same weekend. It's not a new phenomenon and not restricted to The Premiership it would appear.

[Mr Bunny]

My apologies that this is not particularly relevant to the main thrust of thread but on the above point, I had occasion to go through some archive records of The Glasgow Herald a couple of years ago. Reports from nearly 100 years ago featured the English game heavily. Match reports from the likes of Bolton and PNE were more in-depth than the majority of the Scottish games played the same weekend. It's not a new phenomenon and not restricted to The Premiership it would appear.

 

Mind you 100 years ago Bolton and PNE were full of the best Scottish playes. In fact PNE were practically a Scottish team.

 

But you're right of course: the only thing that's changed is that we no longer ignore foreign football and folk watch games fetauring Dutch, Italian and Spanish teams quite regularly.

[Lin1876]

I'm not sure about other areas, but before the spring and summer breaks East Dunbartonshire council produce a booklet which is (or at least was) given to all primary school pupils, and put in the secondary schools, libraries, and every other council building. This basically detailed all the sports courses in the area during the holidays, many of which ran all day for a week or two, and they only cost around £20 per week (probably £30 now, but anyway). I distinctly remember being sat down to select from which ones I wanted to do, and they were great fun. If only they were organised more widely.

 

There was a big issue though. Many of the courses were run at the sport centre in Bishopbriggs, and without a direct transport link (my mum didn't run a car), they were inaccessible. I know that's slightly trivial, but it's an example of the obstacles well meaning initiatives face.

[Watson Towers]

My apologies that this is not particularly relevant to the main thrust of thread but on the above point, I had occasion to go through some archive records of The Glasgow Herald a couple of years ago. Reports from nearly 100 years ago featured the English game heavily. Match reports from the likes of Bolton and PNE were more in-depth than the majority of the Scottish games played the same weekend. It's not a new phenomenon and not restricted to The Premiership it would appear.

 

Fair point, JK. I wasn't suggesting that the anglophilia is anything new, though: just that it is maybe now a good time to move on?