Yesterday I was invited to an Entrepreneurs' Lunch run by the Bucks Economic and Learning Partnership which had a focus on the challenges and opportunities presented by London 2012.
The highlight of the day for me was meeting a guy by the name of Bobby White, the goalkeeper of the Great Britain Handball team. Bobby and the team aspire to compete in London in two years time.
It will not surprise you to know that Bobby did not grow up aspiring to be a handball goalkeeper. He started his senior sporting life as the semi professional goalkeeper for Newport Pagnell FC, and has actually only been playing Handball since January 2008. Bobby, along with seven of his team mates, was selected from over 2500 athletes that applied for the 2007 Sporting Giants Talent Identification Programme (TID) which was led by UK Sport and the English Institute for Sport. After a series of fitness and skill based trials he was eventually offered a full time contract starting in January 2008 at a sports academy in Denmark where he joined the existing GB squad members. The aim of the programme is to create a competitive Handball team to compete in the 2012 London Olympics, targeting a top eight finish.
It has not been an easy path for Bobby and the team, principally because news of a significant reduction in funding has meant immediate changes to the set up of the programme. UK Sport funding is remorselessly focused on delivering podium athletes, and this coupled with squeeze in Government funding means that handball effectively needs to be self sufficient at a time when it is investing heavily. Bobby is currently trialling to join a Danish League side which would give him senior League exposure at a crucial time in his development.
When I was talking to Bobby about the moment he decided to give Sporting Giants a try, it reminded me of listening to Greg Searle at Lane4 talk through his decision to go back to competitive rowing. On the face of it both seemed ridiculously tough challenges - to come back to rowing ten years after retirement and at the age of 38, and to learn to play a completely new sport to Olympic level in four years. Both of the guys talk about their decision making ending by them saying to themselves something along the lines 'if not now, then when?'. If I do not make the jump and push myself now, when do I see myself doing it?
I am very fortunate to have the chance to mix with people like Bobby and Greg. It is hard not to be genuinely inspired by the bravery of the decisions they have made, let alone what they may ultimately achieve.
This is a fantastic time in the sporting year - World Cup, Wimbledon, US Open Golf, IAAF Athletics. Fantastic. It is also a lively time for me sport-wise as I try to balance running and tennis.
Saturday was interesting in that respect. I had a shoulder op in Jan and have been on a race to get back for this tennis season ever since. Things have been going well, although re-modelling my serve to help my shoulder has been tough - I have twenty years of ingrained technique to overcome, and serving is so fundamental even at my level.
On Saturday I was playing for my club - Halton Village - against arch rivals Great Missenden. Halton is a fantastic club if you ever get the chance to visit - if Lane4 was a tennis club, it would look and feel much like Halton.
http://www.haltontennis.co.uk/
So - things were tight against our rivals, and my job in the doubles pair was to serve at 4-5. I was fairly confident having played reasonably well most of the day. I was 40-30 up....and it all went wrong. Out of nowhere 2 double faults. I didn't feel nervous or anxious, they just happened. Being frank about it, my new technique just folded under pressure. Something I had done hundreds of times before that day inexplicably went wrong when it really counted. It had to be the pressure...and yet I wasn't conscious of it. We lost the Game, and so the set.
The irony of this was not lost on me when 3 hours later I was watching England vs United States in the World Cup. I guess I saw exactly the same thing happen to Robert Green on a far bigger stage.
It's not many people who can say this, but Robert Green is now my role model as I pick myself up and dust myself down. I thought his reaction both in the moment and in front of the media was absolutely world class. Effectively he said, ''it happens, I prepare for handling it, I learn from what happened and move on''.
Technique does break down - in particular when it is new. A new serve or a new strategy...it is all the same. It happens, we deal with it, we move on.
England is awash with commentary around how far we can go in the World Cup 2010. Whether we perform well or poorly this time, I am sorry to say the long term picture is bleak.
I read a fascinating article last week in The Guardian International Edition. It referenced recent UEFA data linking the number of B, A and Pro badge Coaching Licence Holders (the very top football coaching qualifications) in each of the major European nations. The data is frightening. UEFA suggest that there are only 2,769 UEFA top level coaching badge holders in the UK. At the same time, Spain (many people's favourites for FIFA World Cup 2010) have 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,558. This means that there is one UEFA coach for every 812 people playing the game in the UK, versus a ratio of 1:17 in Spain, 1:48 in Italy, 1:96 in France, 1:150 in Germany and even 1:135 in Greece!
Having played competitive football in the UK for a good nineteen years (and one year in Germany), I can certainly vouch for that ratio. I was lucky, in that I was coached at a good level in England by the Manager of my Under 11 to Under 18 side. He gave up countless weekends to challenge and support me and my team at equal measure...and gave the guys in our side who were good enough to chance to make the step up to semi pro level when he felt he had given us all he could. We were the only side he worked with - his ratio was 1:20 at most. We played many sides with far more talented players - and yet our team was the one with the strongest pathway to making football some sort of a career choice.
Like it or not, creating talent pathways in elite sport is in part a numbers game - both initial support and ongoing challenge have critical roles. Wayne Rooney only wears the Number 10 shirt for England because he was one of the lucky ones - not once, but twice. He was plucked out at an early age and given intensive, UEFA level support as part of Everton's system. Once he outgrew Everton, he made the timely switch to a club which could keep challenging him with Champions League Football. Again his career is not typical - there are regularly more Brazilians, French, Argentinians, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Turk players registered to play at Champions League level than English.
The data tells us that English domestic football is a mess. We might still earn the right to host the World Cup in 2018, but we are not earning the right to win it. Oh, and by the way, you can be coached in art the taking of penalties....
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