New Age Kurling anyone?

A colleague forwarded this interesting exchange in the English Parliament this week (reported in Hansard):

Clive Efford: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport which sports will be included in School Games competitions; and if he will make a statement. [81695]
Hugh Robertson: Currently 24 sports are available to schools. These are athletics, badminton, basketball, boccia, cricket, fencing, football, Goalball, golf, gymnastics, hockey, netball, New Age Kurling, Panathlon (a multi-sport disability event), Polybat, rugby league, rugby union, rowing, swimming, tennis, table tennis, table cricket, volleyball and wheelchair basketball. By September next year, the ambition is to increase that number to 38.
The inaugural School Games national finals will feature 12 of these sports, namely athletics, badminton, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, hockey, judo, rugby sevens, swimming, table tennis, volleyball and wheelchair basketball.

The School Games was launched in June 2010, and is a part of the Government’s plans for a lasting sporting legacy from hosting the London 2012 Games (no comment!). The Games aim to “further revive the culture of competitive sport in schools”. Every school (primary, secondary, special) in England will be given the opportunity to get involved in a package of events and activities.

Do not blame yourself if you are not familiar with some of these sports. Despite the misleading explanation in the response, Goalball, New Age Kurling, Panathlon, Polybat are all aimed at disabled young people (or for ALL young people, irrespective of their abilities).

We should not let the almost inevitable explosion of rage from the Daily Mail and its minions, before someone explains about these sports, distract us from a much more important issue: the remarkable progress that has been made by advocates in ensuring that all young people have access to sport and healthy competition, regardless of their ability.

It was only a couple of decades ago when disabled people were kept to the margins of sport. The trajectory from that position to Hugh Robertson's statement is remarkable.

I await the uproar with glee!

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Cricket versus Barbarism

I'd like to start with a quiz. Who said this?

“Cricket civilises people and creates good gentlemen. I want everyone to play cricket ..; I want ours to be a nation of gentlemen.”

I will reveal the answer at the end of this entry.

The stimulus for my mention of cricket is an interesting article in the magazine All About Cricket. The author, Safi Thind, reports on the emergence of a number of initiatives that have used cricket as a vehicle to combat problems like misbehaviour at school and youth delinquency.

For example,

"StreetChance "aims to increase aspiration, promote mutual respect, and enhance relationships with others, including schools, police and the wider community by providing structured coaching and competitive opportunities for young people."

Another charity - Cricket for Change - gives some clues about the selection of cricket as the means to these ends:

We see cricket, because of its history throughout the world, as being uniquely able to transcend the major urban racial groups, black, white and Asian and because it's a non-contact game, is also uniquely able to help young people with a disability share in the benefits of competitive team sport.

We believe that cricket can be used to make a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities and for the last 30 years we have used our unique cricket programmes to help young people, in particular, make positive choices about their lives and to help them feel good about themselves.

Cricket, above all other sports that emerged from Victorian Britain (which is, let's face it, almost all sports) has the reputation for developing decent behaviour.

This was the view of the philosopher David Stove. Cricket, he wrote, “requires gentlemanliness, and teaches it”. And such gentlemanliness is expressed both in the nature of the game (and its often extreme delays of gratification) and its spirit. In other words, cricket teaches decent behaviour by providing an environment in which such behaviour is practiced.

Of course, it is not difficult to undermine a simple equation between cricket and civility: bodyline, ball-tampering, match fixing, and so on. But that the vast majority of cricket matches manage to maintain an over-riding air of good manners and good spirits - even at the very highest levels - does suggest that these schemes are on to something.

And the source of the claim that cricket civilises people that I quoted at the start of this entry? It was that great humanitarian Robert Mugabe.

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