If we treat sport like a play-thing, so will they
Nothing like a good bitch and moan to get things off our chest and, though it is a part of the national psyche that we could more often than not do without, it is one that is rarely more understandable than in the month of September when the hunt for All-Ireland final tickets descends into rancour and ultimate regret.
The complaint is a familiar one: the guy who hasn’t frequented Croke Park or the home county ground all week getting a freebie in the Premier Level or yer wan home from wherever whose dad plucked a golden pass out of his back pocket as soon as she touched down.
This isn’t peculiar to the GAA, of course.
Just watch the next time an Irish team or athlete makes things happen on a big stage and stand back as the stampede to be there ring, pitch or trackside begins. Deep down, every one of us is a Charlie Haughey on the Champs Elysees. We’re event junkies. Nothing less. This isn’t just Irish nature, of course, it’s human nature. Research conducted on athletes tells us that sport releases all sorts of positive endorphins and the same biological phenomenon kicks in with those in the stands.
That’s all well and good but, annoying though the Johnny-Come-Latelys may be, the fact is they are just the most visible manifestation of a pick-and-choose attitude we all take to sport and leisure and one that is limiting not just our performance on the elite stages but the very health and well-being of our nation.
In less than two weeks’ time the government will reveal its latest Budget and no doubt the figures will bring with them another dollop of bad news for a population that has become almost inured to news of cuts and talk of sacrifices. And if sport suffers another snip then it will be all your fault. Yes, you. You and me and every other man and woman in this country who watches sport or participates in it as a player, official or volunteer.
The problem is that sport’s very essence is its weakness. It is viewed not as an industry but as a play-thing in much the same way as the sports section of a newspaper is called, somewhat condescendingly, the ‘toy department’ and yet sport generates the same value to the European Union’s economy as forestry, fisheries and agriculture combined. At it’s very essence, it is a means of improving health and increasing social cohesion.
Sarah O’Connor is chief executive of the Federation of Irish Sport (FIS) which speaks on behalf of 71 national governing bodies and 28 Local Sports Partnerships and she believes it is politicians who are unable to make the connection between sport and business. Truth is most of us are guilty of that myopia and it has to change.
Again, it is sport’s DNA that seems to work against it here. What is it at it’s core but a case of me/my team against the world? You only have to think about how our professional rugby players are said to find it difficult coming together at international camps down the years to understand the difficulties in having everyone singing off the same hymn sheet.
The establishment of the FIS has helped.
Five years ago it was genuinely revolutionary to stand in a room and look at the heads of the IRFU, GAA and FAI sit together at a top table and nod their heads in agreement. That was when the sports sector first came together as one in an attempt to combat the hits everyone knew were coming with the onset of recession. The fact is they have so far failed to achieve their aims.
Sport’s government funding has been sliced and diced by 33% since 2008 and what makes it all the more frustrating is the cuts began just as the system was beginning to show clear signs of success — most obviously at international level where improved structures, staffing, skill sets and funding were taking firm hold.
Our brightest and best have achieved all this and yet we lack the basics. For years we thought that meant things like 50m swimming pools and athletics tracks, but this is a country that still has no automatic provision for physical education in our schools, the result of which is that a frightening amount of us lack the basics of physical literacy. Of course, that might change if we had a national strategy for sport. Which we don’t.
Bottom line? We succeed at sports almost in spite of ourselves and we aren’t doing nearly enough to drive participation and the ensuing benefits but, hey, who cares when there is another All-Ireland final, Ireland international or Six Nations tournament just around the corner.
Email: brendan.obrien@examiner.ie Twitter: @Rackob
