WELL, the news is out and it wasn’t a surprise to most people to hear that the coronavirus will probably be with us well into 2021. The implications for sport – and society as a whole – are incalculable.
Not least among the issues sports have had to confront is the recruitment and retention of players, officials and volunteers. So how will they ensure the future of their sport and work through 2020/21 to enable them to be in a strong enough position to kickstart their seasons?
Before you scan down the page to look for the solution, I have to say I don’t have one to offer. There is no quick fix and I am absolutely sure the experts in their own specific sports would agree.
No-one can predict the future, but preparation and planning for a new season is an annual requisite for most sports, plotting dates for competitions, training, AGMs and so on. At this moment there are so many unknowns that this is an impossible task for most people in the sporting environment.
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One of the most challenging areas is recruiting members, which is and will continue to be particularly difficult to overcome. The transition from school to club is where so many girls are lost to sport.
Half of schools in England that participated in research for the Youth Sport Trust delivered fewer than 30 minutes of daily activity time for children, with 12% recording that there were no active minutes at all. Only 3% of secondary schools will be offering more PE, even though “low physical fitness” and “mental wellbeing” were clearly identified as issues by teachers.
Add to the mix previous research showing girls are disproportionately affected by a crisis of inactivity and we have, to quote the current “in” phrase, a perfect storm, underlining the potential long-term impact on recruiting new members into sport. We all have had to be innovative during this crisis and for sport this is one more hurdle to overcome.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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