Is Government Killing British Sport

IS GOVERNMENT BUREAUCROCY KILLING BRITISH SPORT?

I recently wrote an article about my concerns with regard to how Bureaucracy is killing amateur sport or shall I say how it is trying to prevent people starting sport. The main thrust of my article is one the cost and the amount of paper work you have to collect to start a club, lets have a look at cost:
1) To start any club it will soon be necessary for a newcomer to hold a United Kingdom Coaching Certificate, this will involved attends a weekend course including a Friday night, then there will be an exam and this is for you to be an assistant Coach the cost anything from £200 upwards. Now an assistant can only assist a full Coach, so you will have to move on the next step a Full Coach this involves several weekends and a lot more costs I am told anything from £600 upwards.
2) To start your Club you will need to aim for a Club Mark what does that involve (I am quoting the Judo Club Mark but I expect it will be the same for all Sports)

Coaches and volunteers
There is a minimum of two BJA Club Coaches working within the club programme - all
coaches hold a current valid BJA coaches’ certificate
At least two volunteers (one is a coach) have attended a sports coach UK child
protection course
One coach has attended a sports coach UK Equity in your Coaching course
One volunteer has attended the Running Sport Club for All course in the last 12 months
Duty of care and child protection
The club has adopted the BJA Child Protection Policy and is working towards the
procedures laid down
The club has adopted codes of conduct for all coaches, referees and volunteers working
with children and young people
The club has a code of conduct for parents/carers
The club has written procedures for dealing with injuries/accidents
The club has access to a telephone at all club sessions, gradings and competitions
Coaches and volunteers have access to first aid equipment at all club coaching and
competition sessions
The club has the contact details of parents/carers and emergency/alternative contacts
The club records all junior players taking part in coaching activity on attendance sheets
with access to important medical information
Club management
The club is affiliated to the British Judo Association, and has public liability insurance
The club has an open/non-discriminatory constitution that is reviewed annually and
comparable to the current BJA Model
The club has a specific membership category and pricing policy for children and young
people
The club has contact with its local authority sports development officer or Sports
Partnership
The club has a junior co-ordinator to act as a liaison with Sport England, Sports
Partnerships and the BJA
The club ensure that all coaching and competition takes place within a safe facility
The club has a set of rules for children and young people
The club communicates regularly with players/parents/carers via regular mailings of
newsletter or information bulletin
The Club has established one Club - School link
The club has a current written 12 month action plan
Playing programme – coaching and competition
The coaches and volunteers responsible for the programme have job descriptions with
clear roles and responsibilities assigned
The club has separate junior and senior training sessions
The Club provides opportunities for juniors to gain grades in the BJA Mon grading
scheme (including Novice to 6th Mon)
The club provides opportunities for juniors to attend BJA county/area competitions
The club operates with a recommended player/coach ratio no greater than 20:1

I expect some will say I am a Luddite on the contrary I have been advocating proper coaching syllabus for nearly 30 years, I along with Geof Gleeson formulated the IBF Coaching Effective Programme, I founded the Academy of Coaching with Geof and was a founder member of the Guild of Sports Internationalists details can be found on www.budo-ibf.co.uk . In all honesty the UKCC must have looked at the IBF Coaching Effective Programme because the similarities are obvious as with the Club Mark most of what is included all my clubs have practised for over a decade with one or two accept ions.
The one thing both Geof and myself agreed on all those years was educating people to become Coaches should be voluntary and inexpensive if it was to cater for all people. The idea of Government getting involved was horrific to the pair of us as we could see if they were involved the actual Coaches would be pushed to one side and the bureaucrats would take over eventually dumbing down everything to the lowest common dominator.

So before long Sports Coaching and Sport in general will become just another Government Quango i.e. State Run Sport.
Sometimes it pays for people who know their subject to be allowed to run their own organisation with out government interference and without government money. When you are self funding you become much more appreciative of where money goes and most goes on the subject you are interested in, as soon as Government money funds a project all of sudden you see the cost administration go sky high, soon there are more administrators then participants.

Coaching and Sport needs to be innovative, inventive, Government involvement will HARMONISE Coaching and Sport, this means it will standardise and innovation will be treated as interference in the well running of sport, with a compulsory system how would you get new sports or new ideas. How many new sports have been invented over the last few hundreds years if sport was run by the state would they be there now I doubt it.

Let me explain how I and many other sportsmen have worked in the past with great success I will use Judo as my sport as that is my expertise but this scenario can apply to any sport.
One of your adult students shows an interest in getting involved in the Club lesson; he or she is of reasonable ability (Judo Blue Belt). You start by allowing them to shadow you or a qualified coach as you see them progress you give them more responsibility till they are ready to take a lesson under your guidance. Once they have reached this stage you encourage them to take a qualification, the IBF has a Practical Proficiency Award Scheme for Instructors. This scheme allows the qualified Coach to examine the candidate on his Practical ability, there is no written work involved in this scheme and all work is done with in the club at a minimum cost of £10 this can be seen on www.budo-ibf.co.uk .

What is also important about this PPA is that it get people who are not academically aware i.e. have a problem with reading and writing, involved. These people can be very gifted Coaches who a natural ability to pass on their knowledge to others yet if we continue down the line of Compulsory qualifications which have a high academic and high cost input these people will be marginalised in fact “Academic & Financial apartheid”

Coaching should always be a two way ride the Coach teaches their pupils and by doing this they increases their own knowledge. For example many years ago a good friend of mine a Female Coach had two very good Female Judo Competitors both were Travellers after a period of time both wanted to be come Coaches yet neither could read or write to any level but they were excellent Coaches. Both passed their PPA but they were not contented with this they wanted the Full Coach Award, to do this both went to classes to learn to read and write properly, So becoming a Coach helped them redress the failure of the State to educate them and the State was not involved with their progress. Yet another plus was that the Female Coach who introduced them to Judo also taught them to read and write, she gained by the experience because it was an area she had never visited before, I could go on but by now you should have the idea.

The Compensation Culture is also causing a great deal of problems in the Sports World with more and more Coaches moving out of Coaching because of the fear of being sued. Recently there was a Court case regarding the injure to a Junior Judo Player whilst doing a Grading (Belt Promotion Test) his claim was that the boy he had to demonstrate on was bigger and older. He weighed 5 lbs more and was 6 month older; thankfully this was not accepted by the Judge, if it was Judo would be finished along with all other grappling sport. How can you have a child age for age, weight for weight it is impossible. Yet this case has brought up the scenario about age and weight, for years a junior was 5 years to 15 years divided into weights, with little or no injury. As we Judoka became more educated we realise that the age difference was to great so my organisation IBF UK made the following changes 5,6 and 7 years, 8 years to 12 years, 13, 14 and 15 years all divided into weights. Recently the Governing Body for Judo the British Judo Association introduce weight categories in two years age band, an excellent idea it was hoped it would encourage more youngsters to compete and would certainly be a lot fairer and safe (safe to me it not the right word as infers any other way is unsafe and that is not true). Sadly it has not encouraged more players what it has done it has made winning a medal easier, this in my opinion leads to a drop in standard but that is another matter. The problem is with Judo in decline over the few years and all associations membership has decreased create a problem when running tournaments. The governing body will have sufficient members to run these two year age band competitions but smaller organisations and clubs will not get enough players to have such varied amount of categories. They have relied on something similar to what the IBF UK organise, these smaller events have been the feeders for the major tournament, the ones that encourage the new player to have go. So if the Insurance companies decide insure only two year age band tournaments these will be finished another nail in the coffin.

This has been a long winded letter but I think it is important that something is done other wise we will sleep walk into State Run Sport which will there for the few who can win international medals just like the old Soviet Union who used Sports as a show piece for their political system.

If I can raise enough interested in my concerns I will try to organise a meeting it is hoped a leading politician will chair the meeting, please circulate this letter to anyone who you think may be interested in preserving British Sport

Martin Clarke 118 East Street Sittingbourne 01795 437124 sombogb @ Blueyonder.co.uk