Yasmin Taylor-GB Female Telemark Skier.

Adelle Tracey GB-800m and 400m Athlete

Nekoda Davis-GB Judo

Fran Brown-Paraclimber

Stylist magazine joined forces with sports giant adidas to create the Fair Game Awards, an initiative to boost funding and kit out upcoming female athletes and amateur teams. They were inundated with 25,000 entries and these hugely worthy athletes  each received a £2,000 bursary from adidas. Ten amateur teams also had their share of £40,000 of kit and last week a lunch was held at London’s The Modern Pantry to commemorate Stylist’s individual winners.

The perception of what is possible has dictated what we believe to be beautiful. The human body, as a vehicle for intense athletic activity, is deemed to have reached its maximum potential (that which is most beautiful) if it is able to compete at the Olympic Games. My eyes have recently been opened by a friend/colleague/fellow sport enthusiast as he relays to me his experience discovering the new heights and limits of the human body.

Hi Abdulmohsen, can you just give a short brief about yourself for our audience today? What you do, your relation to sports, any background as an athlete?

First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Abdulmohsen Algosaibi. I have been involved with sport since an early age as a tennis player and later as a triathlete and runner. My passion for sport has gotten me into several volunteer roles such as the Secretary of the Bahrain Road Runners Committee, a non-profit running club that organizes major events in Bahrain. I have also volunteered my help during several Golf Tournaments in Bahrain.

You recently participated in a program delivered by the IPC Academy called the “Games Experience Program” (GEP) and the “Inclusion Summit” (IS). Can you give us an overview of what these two programs were?

The GEP was a 3 day program where participants were given insight into the staging of Olympics & Paralympic Games. The hosting of major sporting events such as the Olympics or the World Cup are complex products to deliver and require years of preparation and planning. Insiders from organizing committees from several host cities shared their experience with the program participants. I never knew the level of effort and precision needed to deliver the Olympics, and now having seen it and heard it first-hand I find the event that much more special.

The IS was a unique program that highlighted the way in which the organizing committee of the London Games were able to be inclusive during all stages of planning and preparation. I have heard of the term social inclusion before, but never before have I seen it executed to such a high degree as was the case with the Games this year. The involvement of all facets of society ensured that the Games catered to all and was accessible to all. Even more so than the GEP, I was amazed at the working conditions created so that communities could participate in the delivery of the Games. From infrastructure in the Olympic Park and Village, to the City of London, no aspect of the Games was decided upon without the buy-in and influence of a multitude of stakeholders representing a wide array of social, ethnic, physical backgrounds.

Can you elaborate on your experience at the Paralympic Games. Which events did you attend? What was your initial perception before attending? How was the atmosphere? Can you tell us about your feelings throughout the event?

As part of the joint program of the GEP + IS we got access to some events at the Paralympic Games. I attended several events, with the highlights for me being the rugby matches and the track events. Before attending the events I felt a little bit apprehensive because I never watched competitive disabled persons in action. I wasn’t sure whether sympathy or pride or awe should be the emotions I felt, so I was a bit hesitant before emerging myself in the moment.

The rugby match was a sight I will never forget. It is etched in my memory like a colossal epic battle that took place several millenniums ago with the history books depicting them in their rawest and bloodiest form. Here were a couple dozen disabled men and women, in wheelchairs, racing on their two wheels at speeds close to sprints, ramming into each other with extreme bravado and, in the process, getting thrown out of their seats on to the ground. My initial reaction was confusion as I heard and felt the stadium roar into applause, egging on their teams and players to continue this extreme sport without any inhibitions. I have never felt so inferior, so little, so insignificant in front of a man with a disability as I did in that moment.

Another major highlight for me personally was attending the sprint finals in the Olympic Stadium.  Competing in front of a full house, Paralympians from around the world shattered one world record after another.  With the energy flowing through the stadium I started to realize, this was not a celebration about disability; on the contrary, it was a celebration about human ability and athleticism.

The experience changed me completely. I feel a burning pride and respect for my fellow man. They were heroes, carried on the shoulders of their fans and nations, fighting against all common preconceptions, shattering our paradigms about what man can and cannot do.

I encourage everyone to participate in the fever of the Paralympics, and sports for the disabled as it is as exciting, if not more, than the normal Olympics.

What key lessons can you pass on to policy makers, decision makers and sport professionals in the region, considering what you have learned during this experience?

I really don’t know where to begin. To be honest, there are so many key takeaways that I got from attending both programs and the scope for change in the sport sector in Bahrain is very exciting. I will touch upon three for now, and invite anyone who is interested in getting more details, or who wants to have a general discussion about it, to get in touch with me.

Infrastructure

Part of the success of the London games depended on the infrastructure that was built for it.  The infrastructure spending was as much about building new facilities as it was about regenerating and upgrading existing ones. The new and existing facilities included parks, stadiums, common public areas, as well as transportation spending.  The key difference in the organizing committee’s approach was its early approach on making the facilities and changes inclusive and accessible to the disabled. This is very important because usually facilities are only upgraded to accommodate the disabled later on in their lifetime, thus incurring a cost approximately 10 times more expensive.

To achieve this in London, the organizing committee included wheel chair users and other persons with disabilities in their testing, planning and  decision making.

Heroes

The slogan for this year’s Olympic Games was “Inspire a generation” and it is maybe too early to assess whether this has been achieved or not because it is a long-term side effect of the Olympic Games. However, the organizing committee was able to inspire the population quite effectively through the use of heroes from local communities throughout the Games build-up, the event itself, and now well after. These are ordinary people that have extraordinary stories that people can relate to and reflect on. The generated interest from the public increases the likelihood of more children pickup up sports and trying hard to succeed.

A Brazilian delegate who was participating in the Inclusion Summit talked about the successful marketing of Paralympic swimming heroes to raise interest and excitement around the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Media

The utilization of effective media channels throughout the planning and implementation phases was crucial to the success of the event this year. All of this would prove to be useless if the media were not aligned with the efforts.  It is critical for all media outlets to be aligned with sending reinforcing messages and supporting the events.  Once again Brazil succeeded in using media during the games in Athens and Beijing to generate awareness and develop local talent.  They were then able to do better  in the London games where they participated with more competitive Olympians and Paralympians

These are only a few of the lessons, and there is much more that can be learned and I hope that I was able to allude to the potential gains we can make from hosting successful sporting events.

Thank you for your time with us today Abdulmohsen. I hope that you enjoyed your time with us, imparting some of the knowledge you have gained over the recent period. Any last words to our audience?

I just wanted to thank you for this opportunity to share this experience, as I do believe in the power of sport to change, and with major shifts happening in the sporting world today I think it is the right time to have a larger group of stakeholders get together to discuss ways in which to improve event strategy and delivery as well as grassroots sport development programs in Bahrain.

If anyone wants to get in touch with me regarding this, I also have materials, documents and readings that would be helpful and informative. I am accessible through my twitter handle @mohsenalgosaibi

The 25 minute film, called ‘Inspiring Cambridgeshire‘, showcases the impact of the Olympics on the county. Participants of Somersham Carnival’s ‘Sports For All’ day are heavily featured alongside Carnival Committee Secretary, Theresa Baird.

The film was previously shown during The Cambridge Big Weekend, where it’s estimated 10,000 people would have seen Somersham’s future sporting stars playing cricket, rounders, wheelchair football, scooter stunts, as well as others making Olympic-style torches.

Watch out for the Wheelchair rugby in the Paralympics this week. These boys (and girls) are immense. The sport used to be called ‘Murder Ball’, you will see why, skillful, fast and they get stuck in! 

As well as being a talented footballer Roy is also a musician and one of the few visually impaired drummers in the UK.

You can read more about the talented family and their guide dogs here,

http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/news/2006/meet-the-turnhams-the-guide-dog-owner-family

Roy Turnham

Lora Turnham

The PSC-POC initiative to involve LGUs answers a previously raised question here at pinoysportshub regarding the possibility of creating more partnerships between National Sports Associations (NSAs) and LGUs to drive sports development. NSA as well as the Philippine Sports Association for the Differently-Abled leaders who attended the summit were given a platform to initiate their respective campaigns on partnership-building with various LGUs.

This step taken by the PSC and POC presents several possibilities. It leaves the sports community hopeful that sought-after developments will transpire with focused and unified efforts. It can likewise boost the Sport for All objectives that the POC, NSAs, and PSC promote through their respective programs.

In the same venue where sports and local government leaders took steps towards enhancing sports development at the grassroots level, PSC‘s presentation of its ten (10) priority sports was one caveat worth noting.

The PSC’s 10 Priority Sports:

(Olympic Sports)

• Athletics
• Archery
• Boxing
• Swimming
• Taekwondo
• Wrestling
• Weightlifting

(Non-Olympic Sports)

• Billiards
• Bowling
• Wushu

Increased funding and support is always a welcome news for NSAs. In an ideal world, all NSAs should receive government funding on top of private sponsorships they can get. This ensures that their respective discipline’s Sport for All initiatives are pushed alongside their elite athletes’ training.

The announcement of the priority sports is something of a bittersweet occasion for Philippine sports. While it fuels the targeted NSAs programs, it sadly leaves the rest grappling with persistent challenges of insufficient support and funding.

PSC, POC, and some critics of certain NSAs have at some point stated that sports associations should not rely solely on government funding. It is hard to debate that point given the annual budget PSC receives intended to support all the regular, associate, and recognized member associations of the POC. But it should also be noted that there are certain factors at play that make it doubly harder for other NSAs to find alternative sources of funding.

Some of the challenges of managing an NSA:

• Funding ~ Not all NSAs are equipped to harness the support of the private sector. Organizational structures and dynamics are not the same. Some are highly organized and managed in a corporate-like environment with a wide support base. Others thrive on simpler organizational set-ups with little or no volunteers.
• Popularity ~ Mass appeal is key to generating resources outside of the government. Billiards, boxing, and basketball each enjoy a huge fan base. Sponsors gravitate towards other sports that show promise of high marketability. Saying that some NSAs are lazy and too dependent on government funding is a sweepingly inaccurate statement. Factors like a sport’s popularity to a wider public also has to be considered.
• Facilities ~ Promotion is crucial to build a wider audience and generate more support. However, promoting a sport is extremely difficult without the necessary facilities. This is why provision of facilities and equipment helps NSAs not only to promote their respective sports but to undertake critical projects as well.
• Training ~ Top of the line training for administrators, coaches, athletes, nutritionists, sports psychologists, and other sports medicine staff are equally important to achieve a world-class and holistic sports program.

With stagnant or dwindling financial support for many NSAs, the future looks especially challenging. Challenging but not devoid of possibilities. Especially if more LGUs step up and adopt sports including those not in the priority list. Also, there remains within the ranks of NSAs people who willingly devote their time, effort, and resources to promote their sports.

New survey suggests that the Olympics will have little effect on mass participation in sport. Photo: Brighton photographer/Flickr

“Give us our Ball Back: Reclaiming Sport for the Common Good”, a new report by the two British think tanks, the Sports Think Tank and Theos, argues that politician’s claims about the benefits of the Olympics with regards to health, values, morality, and the economy are misleading.

According to a recent British survey, only 4 per cent of people agreed strongly with the statement “I’m inspired to play more sport at the moment because of the London 2012 Olympics”, and 80 per cent disagreed or disagreed strongly. This, the report argues, suggests that the Olympics do not have any significant influence on the level of sports participation.

The report suggests that “sport is no longer just a matter of leisure, entertainment or of spectacular international tournaments. We have come to expect it to make us better people, to contribute to world peace, to develop our economies and make us healthy. Clearly, sport can do these things, but the report argues that firstly we need to be clear that sport has now often been reduced to being a tool rather than something with intrinsic worth.”

Find the full report here

Read more about the Sports Think Tank here

Here’s a selection of photos from the day – check back, as we’ll update it with more pics soon.

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http://www.lunguk.org

Olympic fashion has changed slightly over the years.

Hello Somersham Carnival-goers …..WELCOME TO OUR NEW WEBSITE!!

Our theme this year, to tie in with a certain other spectacular UK event, is “GOING FOR GOLD”!!

For all you budding “Olympians” this is your chance to look the part – anything goes! – from the original Olympians (but no total nudity please!), through to the baggy white shorts and flannels of the 1930’s…. to the modern day lycra!!

Not interested in sport?

Get out that gold lurex, dig out those Bet Lynch style earrings and anything totally tasteless for a bit of fun, or be Kanye West singing “Gold Digger” with his rappers in gold chains for a Day!! Old Yukon Gold Panners … this way please!

From ancient golden civilisations, re-create Tutankhamun’s tomb. Gold was first worn by humans in 3000BC!

Be a UK Banker, if you dare …. Where did they put our GOLD?

Carnival 2012 Entertainment

Come and join us during Carnival Week (16th – 24th June) and on Carnival Day (Saturday 23rd June) and celebrate living in Somersham. See the great entertainment lined up for you and come and have a fantastic time at Carnival 2012.

Mr T ain’t no fool when it comes to Going For Gold.

New this year:

• ‘Last Night of the Proms’ (Community Singing)
• Video Games Tournament
• Taster Sport sessions

..plus the return of our very popular “Busking Spots”.

Got your whistles? Got your flags? See you there!

With grateful thanks for your continuing support. All the best …

the Carnival Committee

The project is one of 40 schemes across the country to receive backing under Sport England’s £10 million Active Universities fund, which aims to get more students playing sport as a lasting legacy of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Over 3,000 students and staff are set to benefit from the initiative, which will be run jointly by The University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University and Sport Nottinghamshire.

UoN students receiving some expert tuition from British Judo coaches

An additional 48 coaches and 150 student volunteers are also to be recruited to help deliver entry level activities across 11 sports, including football, rugby union, judo and swimming.

Dan Tilley, Director of Physical Recreation and Sport at The University of Nottingham, revealed that he was delighted to have secured funding for a project which fits in with the sports for all ethos that his department promotes.

He said: “Aside from the ability to address the issues of inactivity and engagement amongst our students, one of the most exciting elements is the partnership between the two universities and Sport Nottinghamshire.

“The funding will allow us to deliver a much more flexible, inclusive and comprehensive project. We are grateful to Sport England for their support and funding, and to BUCS who have been central to securing this funding.”

The Active Universities projects will give tens of thousands of students across the country the chance to try out a new sport, or get back into one they’ve tried before.

Boosting student participation will have a lasting impact on grassroots sport because research shows that students who do play sport at university are far more likely to continue participating throughout their lives. It will also help tackle the issue of drop-off in sports participation that sees many young people giving up sport in their late teens and early twenties.

Sport England’s Chief Executive, Jennie Price, said: “Young adults who are still playing sport when they leave university are likely to stick with it for life, so this is a good investment in the future. These projects have been chosen because they really listened to what students wanted, so we are confident they will succeed in increasing participation.”

The announcement was also welcomed by the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP, who said: “This funding for 41 different sport projects across the country is exactly what our Olympic legacy promise is about — offering more opportunities for people to get involved. This will boost university sport and encourage students to continue playing once their studies are over.”

The British media scrutiny leveled at Canada’s “Own the Podium” is perhaps, therefore, based on an under acknowledgment of UK Sport’s drive for excellence. Thus, the appropriation of Own the Podium’s strategies for excellence in high performance sport in the form of the “Team 2012” national campaign headed by UK Sport, should not be surprising. In fact, it should be further unsurprising, given that both countries, the UK and Canada, appear to be underpinned by similar sporting models, and further undergirded by similar political ideologies and aspirations (cf. Green & Houlihan, 2005). For example, both countries, known for their resemblance of “social welfare” models of governance, devote centralized government funding to sport through several National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and National Sporting Organizations (NSOs). Both, also, attempt to balance this funding through shared provisions from both public and private dimensions. Despite the structural differences in terms of organization of national and local sporting bodies, both governments also allegedly share a dedication to excellence and mass participation (Green & Houlihan, 2005). Research by scholars Houlihan and White (2002) has addressed this dedication as a tension between encouraging elite level sporting participation to few, and also encouraging widespread recreational opportunities to all. Specifically focusing on UK sport policy, this tension was uncovered through work that carefully unpacked the sport development structure of the UK sport system, providing a comprehensive analysis of the following four key goals: 1) to define sports development; 2) to describe the “evolution of sports development” (p. viii); 3) to uncover the organizational settings of sports development, and 4) to analyze how sports development works as a service.

Recent work of Green (2007) documented a clear shift in UK and Canadian sporting agendas, suggesting that despite excellence being at the forefront of policy regimes, in the early 2000s sport for all became a focus point given the claims of an “obesity epidemic” and the need to intervene in the public’s health. Although Green’s analysis is astute, arguably the government is merely paying lip service with regard to their “focus” on sport for all or “mass participation,” whereby the policy goals and media perpetuation within the last ten years have continued to be highly elitist and nationalistic. Thus, sport for all unfortunately continues to be seen as a by-product of an effective elite sport system as opposed to a primary government agenda.

We greatly enjoyed our stay at the Embassy Suites, Logan Airport,( and the wonderful city of Boston)  but the highlight of the hotel location, for me, was to be found on the five minute walk to the T station.

We had read that the walk from the hotel to T station  was ‘through a pleasant park’. So, having arrived at Logan from Edinburgh and settled into our rooms, my son and I decided to take an early evening walk to check out the route to the station and our surroundings. From the hotel door was a tree lined walkway which led to a  children’s play area, thoughtfully provided with fun showers and sprays to keep local kids cool in the heat, which, at around 7pm was still in the 80s.

So far, so good. We walked past the play area and into a kind of dream. An area around the size of four full sized football pitches was laid out in fifth generation astroturf, all of it in immaculate condition. The whole area was also covered with local youths playing soccer; there must have been two hundred or more teenagers and early twenties involved in informal games – all with portable goalposts and all in sports kit. Around the sides of the main activity, small groups of younger kids were being coached in a ordered fashion by adults, maybe parents. Without exception these youngsters, some as young as four or five were practising skills and doing drills rather than playing games, but, even here, the equipment was of the highest standard. This was during the World Cup, so there was a buzz of excitement about the place, and the majority of players, from appearance and replica shirts, seemed to be from East Boston’s immigrant populations – Hispanic, Korean, Balkan, Asian and so on. It was an amazing and uplifting sight in a public park.

We walked on, slightly slack jawed, to identify the T station at the far side of the park. This, again, was spotless and integrated with buses to Logan Airport, a few hundred yards away. Ticket arrangements were clear, but, just in case, tourists who looked a little lost were being approached by Transit Authority employees who were helping them find their way round the computerised ticketing system.

We headed back to the hotel by completing the circuit round the parkland and the footballers. The pleasant pathway was being used by commuters, airport passengers and staff and people out walking in the evening sunlight. As we reached the end of a hundred yard stretch we realised we were coming to a public stadium, again busy with people training – running, shooting hoops, throwing American footballs. The signs suggested it was used by East Boston High School, and it contained a 7 0r 800 seater open stand, a central pitch for field events, rugby or American Football, and a 400 metre tartan track in immaculate condition.

Carrying on, we passed a softball diamond, then a Little League diamond and, as we returned to where we had entered the park, realised that in a corner of the astroturf where the soccer players were playing there was also a full sized baseball diamond, apparently home to the  East Boston Knights in the local baseball league.

This was a superb, public park  amenity, with a high standard of facility and maintenance, and clearly extremely well used by locals. The view below gives an idea of the 17 acre site, with the hotel just left of bottom centre, and the T station at the top centre. (Thanks to Google Maps!)

The park remained busy every night of our stay, and during the day locals used it with or without their children, to rest in the heat, play in the fountains or as a pleasant green space to lighten the day’s work or tasks. Even late in the evening, when the soccer players, baseballers and others had gone, the walk across the superb astroturf from the station to the hotel was illuminated by first rate floodlights, left on for the public’s convenience and safety.

So, having chosen an hotel for the  most sensible of reasons, we found that it fronted on to a piece of inspiration – uplifting in many ways, but also demoralising when compared to our lot at home.

Looking at the top image, it should be possible to work out the location of this public park. Sweeping from left to right, in an arc that bounds the top of the site, is one of Boston’s main freeways, on  the other side of which can be seen planes parked on the apron at Logan Airport. The train system runs down the left hand side, and along the bottom of the picture is housing, our hotel and rental car locations. In other words, this is a large but hemmed in site, virtually on top of a major airport and surrounded by major traffic arteries. Think, for a moment, of a similar site next to any of the UK’s major airports: Heathrow, Ringway or even Edinburgh. If it was not covered by concrete, it would be an unsightly mess, littered and abandoned, neither used or useful.

So, how come, in East Boston, it is a site of inestimable use and pride to the local community?

Well, the answers to that lie in opportunity and political will but, most significantly, in philosophy. I really wouldn’t want to get into the messy byways of local Boston politics, the eco lobby, and airport expansion, but a brief history is helpful for understanding how the citizens of East Boston, and, apparently, other areas of the city, are so fortunate in this facility.

This area of East Boston was originally composed of a number of islands which were gradually filled in by the needs of industry. By the 1840s, East Boston, as it had become, was the site of Donald Mackay’s Shipyard. This Nova Scotian built many of the  famous tea clippers that competed for speed across the oceans of commerce. Eventually, Boston’s Logan Airport would come to cover this site, and by the 1960s, was desperate to expand.

The airport and its traffic also contributed to another major Boston problem in the last decades of the twentieth century: road traffic and the need to adapt a city with streets built for horse drawn carriages to the demands of later times. Basically, a city with so much waterfront needed more tunnels – especially considering only one tunnel led to Logan. In addition, the major traffic artery -I93 – cut straight through the city on elevated sections and was a hindrance to development in all sorts of ways. The plan, first formulated in the 70s, was to demolish the raised highway and replace it with a tunnel, through the centre of town,and also to build a third tunnel for access to Logan.

Those who are familiar with the frustrations of Edinburgh’s current tram development – or indeed any major infrastructure development – won’t be surprised at the outline of progress on what was to become America’s most expensive highway project ever. Estimated at around $8 billion in 1985, some say the final cost will, be around $22 billion, and, in real terms, around four times the expected cost. There were accusations of graft, shoddy workmanship and at least one full on tragedy when a roof panel in the new tunnel collapsed. There was any amount of political and planning infighting and many special interest groups got to roll around in the gutter. They started the project finally in 1991 and it was largely complete by 2006.

Bostonian wit christened the project The Big Dig -and, from what I could tell, and, as you would expect, there are a whole range of opinions about the concept, its execution and the aftermath. However, it has eased  traffic flow dramatically in some areas, and, most relevant to this blog, there were a number of requirements attached to planning permission which, at least theoretically, were good news for Boston residents and visitors. The space through the centre of the city left by the demolition of the overhead highway was designated the Rose Kennedy Greenway and plans made to beautify the route and, over in East Boston, there was a projected greenway across the area linking waterfront to waterfront by way of walking and cycle paths, community gardens and parks. The East Boston Memorial Park, with which we were so impressed, formed part of this development.

Logan Airport, through its multifaceted authority, Massport, had a part to play in its local East Boston area also. From mid nineteenth century shipbuilding times, this part of Boston had always attracted immigrants and provided a home area to  the various waves of  Irish, Italian, Jewish, Hispanic. It is in  a unique situation, on what amounts to a finger pointing out into the harbour. This provides a strange approach for passengers who look out of the descending aircraft with mounting apprehension as they appear to be landing on water, and many concerns for ecologists who worry at the effect of so many planes on such an important environment.

As is the case with many busy airports, Logan is always looking to expand, and indeed has done so quite dramatically in the last decade, encouraged, it has to be said, by the provision of that extra, Ted Williams, Tunnel, as well as increasing demand for air travel. Combining this expansion with the recession in various manufacturing  industries in the area, meant bad news for the local population. This gave them leverage against the major concerns responsible for redevelopment and expansion in the Eastie area.

In the end, money was allocated from The Big Dig funds to renew and renovate neighbourhoods affected, and, as airport expansion in the sixties had obliterated East Boston’s much loved Wood Island Park, the formation of the East Boston Memorial park, next to the Stadium, was seen as part compensation. As part of the deal, and, I would say, crucial to its effective sustainability, was the agreement that Massport would be responsible for maintenance of the Park and stadium, mirroring their similar responsibilities for the greenway project, of which the park is an integral part. In addition, many local organisations are funded to provide a variety of summer activities for local youths, sporting and otherwise, further promoting the use of facilities and the sense of ownership.

Now, there is no doubt that, speaking to people in Eastie, you would get a range of responses to the Big Dig, the tunnel, Logan’s expansion and the efficacy of  the ‘beautification’ funds and projects that have come in its wake. In addition, it would be presumptious of me in the extreme to pontificate on East Boston’s community affairs on such limited knowledge.

However, there are definitely lessons that we could learn here in Scotland from such developments. Apart from noting that the bigger the development, the bigger the overspend and the more hassle there will be with contractors, which I think we already knew, there is the matter of community agitation to ensure that local wishes are acted upon. It seems that, where legislators are looking to reelection and companies are looking for ongoing contracts, the voice of the people still CAN make a difference, if loud enough, well presented and widely supported. I’m sure there were many defeats for the East Bostonians – you wouldn’t envy them taking on two of today’s most powerful lobbies in transport and planning, but there are also sustainable signs of what they have gained to ameliorate to some degree the losses. I understand they will need to keep fighting to ensure that the greenways, the gardens and their maintenance continues to be important to Massport and local government, but, crossing that park, filled with local activity, so well presented and so beautifully  maintained, you had to salute the strength they have shown already.

However, there is a more important element to all of this. And that relates to prioritisation, political philosophy and community awareness. The Park and Stadium were eloquent demonstrations of what can be achieved, but they existed because local people, and through them, city politicians, knew instinctively that East Boston needed recreational space for both the mental and physical wellbeing of its citizens. Yes, money was made available from The Big Dig, but that such a fund existed was down to a certain philosophy when approaching the construction contracts. And, yes, to see so many young people enjoying sport in such first class surroundings, in a public place, was uplifting – but even more so was the attitude of all and their approach to the amenity.

Unbelievably for us in Scotland – there was no litter, no graffiti, no vandalism, no threatening groups of youths monopolising children’s play areas, no drinking, no swearing and absolutely no sense of threat. And this was not in what we could call a middle class area either – it was cheek by jowl with airport, railway and freeway – yet it was pristine in appearance, maintenance and usage. Clearly, the people knew what they wanted, the politicians recognised its importance and the community respected it.

These are hard financial times everywhere, but local and central government is still spending money – our money, and multinationals are still making profits on the back of services they offer to us. In Scotland we bemoan  our high levels of illness, our status as the sick man of Europe, the lack of exercise taken by our young people, the alienation of many parts of society, yet there is no real sign of prioritising community health. Campaigns are waged, funds are allocated – but on  nowhere near the level to make a difference. When we look at the – still – obscene amounts of profit being made by Edinburgh’s financial sector, for instance, and tot up the billions profit they accrued before the Crash, is it impossible to believe that a government and city that prioritised facilities for promoting health and wellbeing could have got together with private enterprise, made deals like those made with The Big Dig and suggested ever so gently that planning permission could be eased – not by graft or shady dealings  – but by support for sports and recreational facilities all over the city – built and maintained to a standard so high that the community would be eager to experience them and would take care of them? The reality, of course, was that existing facilities have been allowed to rot, vast amounts of open land and playing fields have been sold to developers, schools are built with limited sports facilities, often in PPI Initiatives where playing fields are swapped for smaller spaces as part of the build deal, and the best of facilties remain in private hands so that  those who are wealthy enough to afford them can keep themselves fit, and so maintain the gap between the healthy rich and the ill poor. There are priorities demonstrated in all of this, but, whatever they are, they have little to do with supporting families and communities and promoting health and fitness – of mind or body.

The bald fact is that our country doesn’t prioritise the provision of such facilities. Provision is at best piecemeal, or focused on the elite rather than everyman.  Money is being spent, but there is no game plan, no clear overall strategy and certainly no indication from various political parties that they are really serious about providing first class local facilities throughout the country. Such provision needs government at local and national level working with the biggest companies, using leverage if necessary, as was done in Boston, to find the cash to promote and build the facilities. Such a change in governmental priorities would change a whole generation’s attitudes – to heath and well being, recreation, society and community.

I know; I’ve seen it in Eastie – and for those in any doubt, check out the destination board on the Blue Line trains that run through East Boston -