Investing in the future
by John Cushing, May 2023
We've been working on a couple of podcasts recently. Totally separate and different, but they got me thinking, about the actual similarities and undoubted potential benefits, if sport is invested in. If only we would...
Firstly, for the first time ever I cycled round the Olympic Park for the latest Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park podcast we make for the London Legacy Development Corporation. I've watched football, slid down the slide, seen netball, had running races, cheered on the Rugby World Cup and covered athletics and of course the Olympics and Paralympics in that Park - but I'd never cycled it! It was revealing the 150m pound investment in improving cycling connections in the Park - because when it was built more than 10 years ago now - there was provision but it's not what cycling needs now. It's changed. As things do. As you'll hear cycling is not only a great sport, but good for general fitness or cheap transport! That benefits us all! Have a listen:
Secondly, after all that success in 2012 and again 4 years later in Rio, there was concern that elite sport in this country was all about winning. What about the athletes? And their care needs? And what message does that send to our young people? So Sally Munday, CEO of UK Sport, said when launching a new strategy for 2021, “the public want us to keep the medals coming, winning the right way, better reflecting modern Britain and making more of our achievements to deliver greater impact.”
And to be honest that's how we tend to feel about grassroots sport, which our latest special episode of Anything but Footy is all about with Sported - a grassroots sport charity supporting half a million young people to overcome barriers to reach their full potential. We all want the benefits of sport clubs and activities, from the childcare aspect, to physical activity and doing good in the community. But do we think enough about how we get there and how it happens? We must make sure we're supporting these groups and we're supporting the volunteers who willingly give up their time and often their own money. And it isn't all about winning, of course that's nice, but its about that community, that feeling of understanding and social interaction, and as the Sport for Development Coalition says using physical activity and sport to address health and societal inequalities, with joined up thinking across schools, doctors, hospitals, sports clubs, gyms etc.
As Michael says in our latest episode, right now medal moments are being plotted for Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics and rightly so, but what the Sported Ring Community Pulse survey, and everything we've learnt from doing Anything but Footy over the past 4 years, is that Foyez Rahman's Sunday League Football project and Anne-Marie Waugh's Rolladome classes, are actually more important for society and the country right now and in the future!
