Pathways into Sport Inquiry
I am pleased to welcome Liz McColgan to give evidence to the committee during the first phase of our pathways into sport inquiry, during which we are taking evidence from successful sportspeople.
As members will be aware, among her many achievements, Liz McColgan has won two Commonwealth gold medals, an Olympic silver medal and a world championship in a sporting career as a distance runner that has spanned over twenty years—although she does not look old enough for that. She has agreed to make a short presentation before answering members' questions.
Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here. I was asked to detail my pathway from when I started out to when I won my medals. I will say why and how I started, list my career up until the end and say what it took me to get there.
I first came across athletics in 1976 at St Saviour's high school. I had moved there from primary school and the introduction was made by Phil Kearns, a physical education teacher who was a mad marathon runner. Instead of giving us hockey or netball during the winter months, he used to make us do cross-country runs for which he set the routes. He noticed that I was always first back from the run.
Phil had a friend called Harry Bennett, who was head coach at Dundee Hawkhill Harriers. Phil sent four girls from St Saviour's, of which I was one, to Harry Bennett. We went there three days a week. After a year, I was the only one still at the club. I enjoyed the athletics. In 1976, I had my first win per se in the Dundee schools cross-country championship. Before I left school in fourth year, I got second at the Scottish schools cross-country championship at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh.
My parents were unemployed and we did not have a lot of money. If Phil had not driven me to races when I was a youngster, I would not have run in any of them. He took time out to drive us in the school bus to Scottish schools events. He also arranged school competitions. He was a great guy; he motivated us. He set me on the route to my career in athletics.
I was very much a tomboy at school. I was the captain of the hockey and volleyball teams. I had decided to leave school at 15, but Harry asked me to stay on, stop all my other sports and concentrate on running. Instead of training for only three days a week, he told me that I needed to train for six days a week.
In 1979, aged 16, I left school and went to work on a youth training scheme place in a jute mill for £23.50 a week. I got up at 5.30 in the morning and went for a run, worked a full day, met Harry at 6 o'clock and trained at night. Looking back, I remember that my coach always used to tell me that I was a 10 kilometre runner. When we decided to train on the extra days, he said to me, "Liz, you're going to be a great 10km runner." To me, that was a big shock. At the time, the longest distance that women athletes could run at Olympic and international level was 3,000m, so I could not understand why he said that I would be a long-distance runner. Thank God that I had him as a coach, because he really directed me and educated me in athletics.
Unfortunately for me, Harry was a very driven guy. At the end of 1979, I got a phone call at my house in Whitfield from a Mr Woods from the States, who I did not know. He offered me a scholarship to the States because he had seen that I was ranked third for my age group in the United Kingdom for the 800m. When he offered me a full scholarship, I thought that it was a bit of a prank and I put the phone down. He called back and talked to my parents, but I was adamant that I would not go. Unfortunately, he then called Harry, who said that I was going—
I know men like Harry.
Harry actually gave my mum and dad the money for the flight and he forced me, along with my uncle, on to a bus all the way from Dundee to London. I got on the plane and off I went. Unfortunately, after I had been away for a year, Harry died of a heart attack. He never got to see the success that he started, but he put me on the road to that success.
In the States, I got my first opportunity to study at school while being encouraged to practise sport. For the first time, my day was centred around my training. Classes took place in the evening or early morning, with gaps in-between when we went to train as a group.
My scholarship was to a junior college called Ricks College in Idaho. Unfortunately, I did not know that it was a Mormon school—I had never heard of Mormons before—where the routine was very restricted. However, it was probably just as well for a young girl from Whitfield on her first time outside Scotland.
When I was at Ricks College, I won every collegiate title that was available. That was the first time in the history of the school that anyone had won all the titles across the board—cross-country and indoor titles as well as national titles on the outdoor track. I was heavily recruited by all the major four-year schools in the USA. I was flown to a few of them, but I decided on the University of Alabama because it offered both me and my boyfriend a full scholarship. We went together.
Alabama was a major turning point in my career. I was there for four years. I had a great group to train with and I worked with a great guy who allowed me to come home in the summertime to compete in European events. That was very difficult because, back then, schools in the USA expected their students to compete in their regional and NCAA—National Collegiate Athletic Association—events. Many athletes who went to the States would come back in the summer burned out because they had had a full season in the States. However, I was lucky enough to have a coach who allowed me to plan my year. I told him that it was important to me to train so that I peaked for the Commonwealth games. He allowed me to do that, which was very good of him.
In 1984, nobody in Scotland knew what I was doing but I scored the highest for Alabama at the indoor national championships, for which I received a letter from Ronald Reagan. If I had been a school on my own, I would have finished third. I sort of doubled up for the team by competing in the 1 mile and 2 mile races as well as the medley relay. The points that I gathered made Alabama, for the first time in the school's history, NCAA indoor champions. Ronald Reagan's letter said that that was an amazing feat and well done to me. I also got the freedom of the city of Alabama.
In 1985, I competed in my first race for Great Britain during the world student games, in which I came fifth in the 10km and seventh in the 3km.
In 1986, I returned from Alabama as kind of an unknown quantity and tried to qualify for the Commonwealth games. I ran the UK championships, which, unfortunately for the other girls, had a really silly rule, which was that anyone who got lapped had to stop, and I lapped everybody in the field at the trials. That gave me my first UK championship title, which qualified me for the Commonwealth games, at which I won Scotland's only gold on the track. That year, I had prepared to run only in the Commonwealth games, but I was put in a situation in which I was kind of like a duck out of water. Because I had won the Commonwealth games, I was then the best in Britain and was asked to run in the European championships 10km. I said that I was not happy about that and that I did not want to run it because I had not planned on running another 10km so close to the Commonwealth games, but I was kind of forced into it by a guy called Frank Dick. Unfortunately, I had a really disastrous games and finished seventh in the 10km and fifth in the 3km. I went from a high where I feeling great about my racing to a low where I was wondering where I had gone wrong.
In 1987, the world-class athletics ball started to roll. In Bali's richest road race, I became the first lady to beat Ingrid Kristiansen. I also got third-degree burns on my arms because I was not used to being out in the sun and did not know any better.
Back then, because there was no lottery funding and so on, you earned your living by winning your races. There were no up front appearance fees—you had to go out and run. If you won, you earned; if you lost, you did not. It was a hard career to try to make a living out of if you wanted to support a family and yourself.
I have never been a big cross-country runner. I have always preferred the road and the track—I cannot get through mud, for whatever reason. In 1987, Scotland had its last opportunity to run as Scotland at the world cross-country championships, because there would be a GB team the next year. I got a phone call from someone at Scottish Athletics asking me to do them a favour and represent Scotland, as I had a chance of winning a team medal. I changed my training for a couple of weeks and came second in the race. I think that we also got a third team medal, so it was not too bad.
In 1988, I went to Seoul. A guy called John Anderson, who I had met at the European championships at the end of 1986 or the start of 1987, asked if he could start coaching me. Since the end of 1979, when Harry Bennett died, I had not had a coach—I had self-coached all the way through. It was quite good to have a Scottish person say that they thought that they could help me.
I started working with John Anderson at the start of 1987. He coached me to Seoul, where I got a silver medal. I felt that I had overtrained in Seoul. That was the first time that I had run in a competition after following someone else's programme and I felt that I was a bit leg tired going into the championships that year. I was very disappointed with my silver medal.
In 1989, whether it was because of the training or something else, I went through a period when I felt really burned out and disillusioned with the sport. I was not enjoying doing what I was doing, and I decided to retire. For nine months, I did not run a step. I remember sitting in my house in Maniki with my husband and seeing a preview of the Commonwealth games in Auckland, which featured a clip of an English runner called Jill Hunter. I said to Peter, "I could beat her," and he said, "Well, you'd better do something about it."
I am glad you never became a politician; that is all that I can say.
I hauled myself off to Australia for 12 weeks' training. That was all the training that I did before Auckland in 1990, where I won gold in the 10km and bronze in the 3km, which was a bit of a surprise.
I came home really motivated, thinking, "I am really enjoying my athletics again." However, after I had been home for about three months, I did not feel right at all. When I started to put on weight on my arms, I realised that something was up with me. I went to the doctor's and found out that I was pregnant. I had my first child in 1990. During my pregnancy, I felt that I was not happy with the way things had been going with my coach, John Anderson, so I decided that I would terminate the coach-athlete relationship. As I did not know whether I would get back into running, I preferred to relax during my pregnancy and not worry about my coaching situation. I ran throughout my pregnancy—I ran as usual until I was seven months pregnant and only once a day after that. I even ran the day before I gave birth. In other words, I was fairly fit while I was pregnant.
In 1991, I coached myself. I got back into training very quickly after giving birth. Seven weeks after giving birth, I won my first 5km race in Carlsbad in the USA. Twelve weeks after giving birth, I finished third at the world cross-country championships in Antwerp. Nine months after giving birth, I was world champion at 10km in Tokyo. After the world championships in Tokyo, I got a call from New York and was asked whether I had ever thought about doing a marathon. When I said no, the reply was, "We'd love you to come to the big apple to take part in the New York marathon." I decided to do that and, after six weeks' marathon training, I won the New York marathon in the fastest ever time for a first-time marathon runner. In the same year, I was named BBC sports personality of the year.
In 1992, I went on to become world half marathon champion. I was world record holder for the half marathon and at 10km, 8km, 5km and 5km indoors. I also won the Tokyo marathon at the end of that year.
In 1993, I picked up a bit of a back problem and was advised by physiotherapists at UK Athletics to put an orthotic in my shoe. Unfortunately, on my first run using an orthotic, I tore the medial retinaculum in my knee. I had an operation, but after I was discharged from hospital, I got a knee infection. Thankfully, a local surgeon at King's Cross hospital in Dundee saved my knee by doing a major operation on it. Unfortunately, I got no proper rehabilitation and was left with a knee that I could not bend or straighten. Even though I was the best runner in Britain at the time, I received no medical help whatsoever.
I went to America where, on the off-chance, I met a friend of my husband called Frank O'Mara, who was the Irish indoor mile champion. He had gone to school in the States. We got chatting and he told me that he had a friend, Gerard Hartmann, who was a kinesiotherapist and who would be able to help me. I linked up with him and he worked wonders—he worked on my leg for four hours a day. It took nearly two years before I could run again. Without him, I would not have achieved what I did.
Gerard Hartmann arranged a meeting with a lady called Grete Waitz, who was an inspiration. In 1995, after a few meetings with her, she became my coach. She was the first proper coach I had had since my split with John Anderson. She coached me until the end of my marathon career.
In 1996, I won the London marathon. In 1997, I was diagnosed with arthritis in my feet but still finished second in that year's London marathon. That was the last race that I ran—I retired as a result of arthritis in my feet.
That was breathtaking. You have given us a most lively, straightforward and honest presentation. I know that members have many interesting questions, but I noticed that the official reporters did not catch your description of the injury that you sustained. We have medical practitioners on the committee, but could you repeat what you said, just for the record?
I tore the medial retinaculum, at the side of the knee.
Okay. We move now to questions.
Thank you, Liz—your account was very impressive. I was struck by the number of things that happened just by chance: you happened to meet someone, you happened to have a teacher at school who started you off and a friend of your husband's happened to say that a certain person could help you. We are considering pathways into sport and we want to make it as easy as possible for people from all backgrounds to get into sport. Can you name two or three things that we should be recommending to make things easier for young people, so that they do not have to rely on chance?
The main thing is to start by considering what happens at school. It should not be left to a teacher to identify which kids are good at sports and then organise sports for them. In this day and age, with the back-up that we have, professional club coaches should be linked into schools. They should go in once a week or once a month for an athletics session. It should not be left to untrained people to introduce the kids to sport.
I was a very fit child because I took part in everything. However, there are a lot of very unfit children in school who do not get the opportunity to say, "Maybe I'd be good at tennis," or, "Maybe I'd be good at golf," or, "Maybe I'd be good at athletics." We need to offer our children a fairly basic fitness programme. When the children are fit, that is when they will catch the eye if they have good hand-eye co-ordination or if they look as if they could be a good runner, footballer or whatever. That is when we can direct them towards sports. However, the first problem to address is that a lot of children are very unfit.
Many children do not get opportunities. They might come from a background like mine, and it might be that people cannot afford to let the children take part in sport, or cannot afford the shoes or the kit that they need. If those problems could be addressed properly at school, and if the education system could include a fitness programme, we would be reaching a lot of kids who might otherwise be passed by.
I take on board what you are saying. You said that when your talent was discovered you joined the Dundee Hawkhill Harriers. How many people were in the club? Does it still exist? How many people are in it now? Has it grown?
I am now a coach at the Dundee Hawkhill Harriers. I coach 30 athletes, whose ages range from nine to 33, and seven of them are international runners. I have come full circle; I am back where I started. However, my club has fewer runners now than it did when I ran, and fewer children running now than it did when I ran. I can go to a lot of kids in Dundee and ask them where their local running club is, but they do not know.
The council charges £1.80 to use the club, which is in an area where families are on very low incomes. How can you expect a child to go to a club three times a week, paying £1.80 each time? It ain't gonna happen.
What is the difference now? How many people were in the club when you joined in the 1970s?
In the 1970s, our club would probably have had around 70 or 80 kids a night—hurdlers, sprinters, throwers and whatever. Nowadays, we would be lucky to get half that number. In fact, it is probably less than half—and the number of kids competing would be even lower, because they cannot afford it.
How many kids are competing?
If 30 kids attend, around 10 of them will not be club members because they cannot afford to join. If we go to Inverness or wherever, our club cannot afford to put on a bus to take the kids up. We depend on parents, but many of them do not have cars. However, we do not want to put kids off by saying, "If you don't compete, you can't come," or, "If you're not a member of the club, you can't come." We are trying to encourage them to come, but they are not getting competition or getting involved in the social side of athletics.
I want to pick up on a couple of points that you raised. How different would your life have been had you not had a PE teacher who was, in your words, "a mad marathon runner"?
I would probably be on the dole; I would be smoking and drinking. That is the lifestyle that I came from, and I still have family members with that lifestyle. I was very lucky that I chose a different path from many other members of my family. I do not hide where I came from, because it is part of me. No opportunities were open to me at the time. When I ran as a child, my mum and dad did not come to see me racing. They did not know what I was doing. I had no money to get to races, and I had to run down to training, do my session and run back. Once, when I was about 13, I wanted to go and run a race in Dundee. Without realising it, I ran about 6 miles down to the race, I ran the race and then I ran 6 miles back. That is what I had to do. I know where I would be if it was not for my running.
There are probably many school pupils, at the age you were then, who do not have a PE teacher who is a mad marathon runner. Where are they being picked up? Are they being picked up at all?
That has not been addressed. I was referring to that when I spoke about going into schools. When I was young, I was a quiet, shy person. I sat at the back of the classroom and let the world go by. Nobody ever gave us any motivation. The schoolteachers did not praise me, even as a runner. I got remarks like "Your brains are in your feet" or "You'll never mature to anything." I did not come from a very positive background.
Getting on our little soapboxes and talking about changing the world and getting all these talented children into sport is all fine and well, but we are passing by some people who might be really good. We are not giving them the opportunity because of their family life or circumstances. We need to go into the schools with an overall programme that encourages everybody in the class. It is not about winning or being the best; it is about taking part, learning about fitness and wellbeing and, for those who want to, taking that to the next level.
I come from the same area as you, and I understand a lot of what you have said. I was told quite a lot of things by teachers, too. Despite everything that we are told, we can still work hard and make our own way in life. I certainly would not be here if I had listened to my teachers.
You mentioned lottery funding. There is an assumption that, because it is there, we can throw money at things and make them happen. Lottery funding was not around when you started your career, but now we have lottery funding, sportscotland and the Scottish Institute of Sport, and we seem quite sophisticated and professional. However, you say that fewer children participate as athletes now than when you started. What is happening with lottery funding? Is it simply not being used properly? Do we not have the right attitude? Do we not have the right culture for supporting people? Where is it going wrong?
The children are not coming through because we are not letting them know what is out there and available to them. The problem lies at school level, and we need to address that.
It is great that we have lottery funding, but it is being allocated in the wrong way. For example, somebody could be a national champion of their sport and not get any funding at all; they might need to go and work a 9-to-5 job. In contrast, a 16-year-old on a gifted and talented scheme could get lottery funding—they could get their medical, their physiotherapy and everything else paid for. Is that lottery money going in the right direction?
I am all for supporting talented people and youngsters, but a national champion should be given some opportunities. A championship comes round every three or four years. If someone has proved that they are the best in their country at whatever they do, they should benefit from a support system, using a three-year rota. If people do not improve or if they fall by the wayside, their funding could be withdrawn, but they could have a three-year opportunity in which to fulfil their potential. That does not happen for many of our senior athletes.
I can give you an example. The national cross-country trials were held last weekend. The winner of the men's race, who is running for Great Britain this week, gets no lottery funding. However, three junior runners were on full lottery funding. Two of them were injured and did not make the race, and one of them did not make the team.
Is sportscotland or the Institute of Sport—or whatever it is called now—making the wrong decisions about the allocation of funding?
It is not a matter of just throwing money at people. There is a big pot of money that can go a long way, so let us make it go a long way. I have always believed firmly that the money should not all go to one athlete. The top seven or eight at an event should all get help—although not necessarily living expenses—from that pot. In my sport, the top six 10km runners in Scotland would be on a training programme to ensure that they are training properly, and coaches would be brought in so that they are educated properly. Their medical bills would be paid—they would get some form of support. A squad, rather than an individual, would be supported. The chances are that three of them will make the British team or a final. If everything is put into one person and they get injured, that is a waste of 30 grand.
You mentioned something called a talented scheme. Is that the technical name for it?
There are world performances, and lots of different levels to the world performance plan, which is directed at UK level. There is a junior plan within that plan—that is what I was on about. There is a world-class performance plan for juniors—the three world-class juniors get lottery funding.
I just wanted the name of the scheme for our report, but I think that some committee members will know about it.
Thank you for the interesting presentation on your career. I was struck by the relationship you had with your PE teacher at school and the way in which he created a bridge for you to join Hawkhill Harriers. Are we still too dependent on PE teachers for delivering sports programmes in schools? Are we doing enough to get coaches in from community sports clubs to do that, in order to create a stronger link between schools and community clubs? If we are not doing enough in that respect, what should we do to ensure that that happens?
There are athletic development officers, who are supposed to link in to the schools. However, they do not yet link completely into the club system. We have not had any kids come through from schools in the area as a result of that set-up. That link-up could be better. The athletics development officers in schools should be liaising with the coaches who are available. At the end of the day, it is the coaches who will be there with the kids, trying to keep them in the sport and make them the champions of the future and so on. In my experience, there seems to be no communication between the schools and the clubs.
To develop that relationship, does more support need to be provided to community sports clubs to give them the capacity to send coaches into schools, or are there sufficient coaching levels in community clubs?
A lot of community clubs do not have sufficient qualified coaches. At Hawkhill Harriers, the parents become level 1 coaches; they do that because they are sitting up at the track on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway, waiting for their kids, and they want to be part of it. In my club, we have two level 3 and 4 coaches, who do not get used in any capacity for athletics in schools—it is a waste to have that level of coach in our area and not to use them in that way.
That is interesting. My second point was on the scholarship in the USA, which played a big part in your personal development. You said that, for the first time, you were able to do your academic schoolwork and continue with your sporting development at the same time. Are there lessons that we could learn from that in Scotland, to give youngsters who have an aptitude for sporting activities greater support in developing as you were able to do in the US?
A few universities are doing that. The University of Abertay Dundee has a programme like that going on. It awards £1,500 to sportspeople and supplies physio back-up on top of that, which is a good start. Personally, I felt that the scholarship gave me the structure to allow me to do both.
I have an athlete who is a straight-As student, who should be studying medicine but who has decided that she cannot do that because she wants to run. There is no support for anybody who wants to study at that level and continue in their sport—they have to give up their sport to follow that career path. In America that would not be the case, because they would be supported in their chosen career as well as in their running. You could learn a lot from that system.
I do not think that all athletes have to go to America to be successful. We had to do that 20 years ago, but there is enough support now to allow athletes to be successful in this country; the difficulty is in finding where to go to do that. Loughborough University has a good set-up, and St Mary's University College Twickenham, in London, has an American-style system in which a student's classes are centred around their sport. Unfortunately, the degree courses tend to be mainly in sports education, which is not what intelligent students want to study.
Do you think that that model could also be used in secondary schools, like the Bellahouston academy approach? Should we look to develop that model throughout the country?
Yes. It is a good model to be worked on.
We are keen to ensure that all children have opportunities, regardless of their background and of whether their parents can support them. The evidence that we have taken suggests that that is possible in a lot of sports until someone needs to travel to competitions. What should we do to enable children from all backgrounds to take part in competitions at that level?
Again, it is about providing support in kind. Someone on a low income who has a talented child should have access to help. Athletes whom I have dealt with have been supported by a local charity in Fife. Unfortunately, one of the guys in the club there died of cancer and the charity was set up in his legacy. Someone who is on income support can apply to the charity and it will pay for them to take part in a race.
Three athletes whom I coached were in that position because their parents were unemployed or low waged. They were selected to run for Scotland in the British schools international match, but they had to pay for their tracksuits. I applied to the charity for a grant, which paid for their tracksuits—that was really good of the charity.
In another case, a child was an extremely good runner and I thought that he would benefit from going down to England to see the Reebok cross-country series, in which around 400 kids take part in the same race. It is all very well being the best in Scotland, but outwith Scotland there is a big difference in the standard of competition. The charity paid for him to go to England and do that.
It should not be left to charities to support such athletes, though. There should be some way in which parents of children who are at a certain level could apply for support from a club or the Government.
Would that be at a regional or a Scottish level?
The regional institutes of sports could deal with that. We are talking about a child who would have reached a good level of athletics, for example, and whose progression in the sport we would not want to be hampered by lack of competition. A child who is at such a level would be at an institute of sport level.
It would be fascinating if we were talking not only about the pathways into sport, but about how people have the motivation to become the quality of athlete that you did. It is difficult to imagine you as a quiet, shy and retiring pupil at the back of a class. I was glad that you did not look at any of us on video or television and say, "I could beat him or her"—that would be quite embarrassing.
Michael Matheson, Ian McKee and other members have stressed where we are trying to get to. How on earth do we improve access to all sports? You have been consistent in saying that you want there to be much greater emphasis in schools on giving people an introduction to a variety of sports, in order that we might see the beginnings of a particular talent. In my experience, which is limited, there has been a conflict between the occasional games master or mistress who had that idea and a school ethos going on for many years in which netball, hockey, football and other team sports were played. There has been a conflict between resource and time in schools and many children have opted to do one or the other, but not both. Can you, from your experience, help us? If we put much more emphasis in schools on introducing children to sport, what do we need to do?
Secondly, to pick up on Michael Matheson's point, if that means that young people have to be referred to a club that has people of coaching standard, what more must we do to ensure that that support is there? Currently, in schools, we do not get either the good introduction or the right people playing the right sport.
In my sport, and in other sports such as football, there are some unfit sportspeople—not all sportspeople are fit. Addressing fitness at a school level means that we are getting fitter, healthier children into our sport. Even if the kids do not go into our sport, it is still a great way for them to go home to mum and dad and educate them with whatever they learn at school through their fitness programme. The programme includes health and nutrition, not just going out and doing a sport; we are talking about a package that is concerned with needing to be fit and healthy, eating the right foods and making the right decisions.
We are educating children at a very young age in a way that might not happen at home. Kids have a great way of going home and saying, "I learned at school today that chips aren't the greatest thing for me—can we have something else?" and they can educate parents to go out for walks. I am not just talking about everybody being Olympic gold medallists—we need to address the fact that although some people will not get into sport, we can still give them a better lifestyle and a better start that they might not otherwise have.
You need to be able to run, walk and jump for all sports; it does not matter what you do, you need those three basic elements. If children learn to do that at a young age, they come into the sports fitter and more aware of what they are doing. At club level, it is about getting the coaches qualified and able to motivate the kids and train them properly. Coach education is very important in the club system. In athletics, there are a lot of good courses for coaches at all levels, from level 1 right through to level 4. People can take the path the whole way in coaching if they choose to do so; someone who is very motivated can get the highest qualifications, but not a lot of people have the time and the finances to do that. Looking at coaches' education would be a really good direction to move in.
That is very helpful.
We know where funding comes from for schools. Taking the Dundee Hawkhill Harriers as our example, it seems as if fewer people participate and, as you have made clear, it costs money to attend the track. How much financial effort has to go into keeping Dundee Hawkhill Harriers going?
That is a major concern. The Dundee Hawkhill Harriers clubhouse is two cottages knocked into one. There is one ladies' and one men's toilet. There is no heating. The building dates from about 1800, so it is pretty bad, but it is the centre of the club. We have no indoor facilities, but we are lucky enough to have a Tartan track, which was relaid last year. There is no adequate lighting to allow running at night. If someone is running at night in winter, it is so dark that we cannot see who they are. The track is registered as an official training track, but it is not good. There is one working bulb in our floodlights. It is amazing to think that it is supposed to be a good facility. If it is raining or snowing, that is tough; there are no indoor facilities at all for the kids.
Dundee City Council has offices that used to provide three showers and a toilet, but the footballers have come and booked that now so we do not get any access at all. There is nowhere to get any drinks or anything. It is just a track with wonky lights and it costs £1.80 to use it.
The track has some serious health and safety issues. There could be 30 from my group running on the track, along with seven or eight guys from Fife athletics club; the children's group of about 30 that uses the track could be there at the same time; an international javelin thrower could be using the in-field at the same time as a hammer thrower; and we have to run across the in-field to record times. The situation is so bad that I have had to take it upon myself—this will cause a lot of problems when I go to my club committee meeting tonight—to book the track for an hour so that my athletes do not get injured. I have athletes who run for Britain and they can run 200m in 22 seconds, or 400m in 46 seconds, and if someone steps out in front of one of them when they are in full flight, their season is over through injury. I cannot risk that any more.
It is a little club up in Dundee and it is not ideal.
That is a slight understatement.
Especially when we have to charge people £1.80 to use the track.
I am glad that that question was asked, but I want to move on from that sombre issue.
We know that fitness is a major issue. Getting people to get fit was your preliminary idea, prior to getting them to engage in sport. What age would you start with? I do not want to fix on people of secondary school age.
Fitness is fun. It is amazing what children as young as primary 1 can absorb. Fitness in education should be introduced to every child's life, no matter what.
Would you go as far as nursery schools?
We can do a lot for children's co-ordination, even in nursery schools, but especially in primary 1.
My main concern is children who do not have the same opportunities as others because their parents may have drink or drug problems and the children might not get fed properly. I see in such children the type of person I was when I was their age. If I had not had the luck or the chance to become the person I became, I just would not be here today. Everybody used to pass me by. My PE teacher was the first person to take notice of me, which was a lucky opportunity for me. If he had not noticed me, I would not be sitting here.
We must grasp those children. There are many really talented children out there who just do not get an opportunity. Programmes must be put in place when children are very young so that those who are in the circumstances that I described can come forward and say, "I can give that a go", without someone saying to them, "You're useless at that. Don't talk to me. Don't tell me that." All my life, I was told I was useless.
Would you begin a fitness programme at the P1 stage?
Yes. I would do that in order not to miss anybody and to give everybody the same opportunity. Programmes could have information about, for example, where the children can go if they want to do running or golf, and there should be people to direct them. There is not enough information or direction just now for young children.
I would describe much of your evidence as graphic. It is important for us, because it gives us a clear picture of how far we still have to go. I do not know how aware you are of the report from the physical activity task force that John Beattie chaired—"Let's Make Scotland More Active: A strategy for physical activity"—which was followed by the appointment of sports co-ordinators and sports development officers, and the development of active primary schools programmes. We are five years on from the publication of that report, but we still hear graphic descriptions of inadequate communication, disconnectedness and so on.
We have covered most areas, but I have two specific questions. First, how much linking does your club have with the education department in Tayside? Are there links? Does the education department discuss issues with you? Do the sports development officers talk to you? Is there communication across the sectors? Communication has been emphasised to us; that is why I ask about it.
Communication was not that great previously, but the club has a new committee that is moving forward and trying to get a better connection with local authority placements. There is a bit of a way to go, but the situation is definitely better. A guy called Alastair Donaldson has just started in the area, and he is very good at trying to bring everybody together. For example, he sends out e-mails to ensure that everybody is listening. Communication is better than it was two years ago.
I want to return to your point about the £1.80 charge that people have to pay three times a week. Does the club have to make that charge to meet the charges that are made on it? What is the charge for?
It is for using the track. It has a fence all the way round, and a guy stands at the gate and will not let us in until every person pays £1.80. The money is put into a meter and we get a little ticket, like you would get in a car park.
The word "graphic" comes to mind, regarding barriers to sport.
Yes.
That is bizarre.
The problem for me is not just the £1.80 charge. There are three boys from one family who run with me. The father is a single parent and he has to pay £1.80 three times a week for his three boys to run. That is a lot; it comes to £5,000-odd a year, and he is struggling big time to do that. However, he wants his sons to run. He was a harrier and he wants his sons to be harriers. He is now a level 1 coach, but he has to pay those charges. He wrote to the council and asked whether there was any way that it could do a family concession, but that is not happening.
I think disconnected is the other word that I would use.
Paying such a charge is difficult when people are on a low income. Athletics is not as expensive a sport as some—for example, people pay quite a bit just to go and watch a football match—but it is difficult if someone has to pay that per week. We try to train on grass as much as we can so that people do not have to pay the charges all the time. However, when it is the track season, they have to do the work and the charge has to be paid.
A health and safety issue is involved in training on grass, too.
It is a nightmare.
I have greatly enjoyed your presentation, for which I express my gratitude. Given that you have travelled extensively, are there examples of best practice that you think that we could learn from? Are there any governmental initiatives that you have heard of while you have been competing against other champions elsewhere in the world, which you feel we could follow in Scotland?
Nothing specific. I did not run at school level; I came through a collegiate set-up into professional running in Britain, so I did not see a lot of school-level athletics. Now that I am coaching, I am involved with children who are in similar situations to those that I experienced when I was a child—they are not 100 miles apart. Children now face similar problems to those that I faced when I was 13 or 14, and that should not be the case. In this day and age, things should have moved on and we should have better facilities and providers, but we do not.
I have not really come across any initiatives of that kind in my experiences of travelling abroad. Australia had a great thing called mini athletics, which was very good. I first came across that in Canberra. Every Saturday morning, there was a mini athletics event involving seven-year-old kids—in Britain, kids cannot compete or join a club until they are nine. Loads of kids turned up and it was like watered-down athletics—it was all competition on the day. That was successful, but I have not seen that happen in Britain or Scotland.
If we want to engage children, we have to give them something to look forward to. They have to get excited about it. Another problem is the fact that there is not an awful lot of competition for our youngsters.
How old were the children who were engaged in mini athletics?
They were seven-year-olds and upwards. There were fun events such as tossing the beanbag. It was a mini version of the sport and it was so much fun.
There is a big push on from UK Athletics for what it is calling street athletics, which is a fantastic thing. If it can take it up a level and go into the housing estates where the children are living, get them out of their houses and do stuff with them, that will be a big step forward. I hope that someone will come up with that idea and take it forward.
I identify with a lot of what you say. In the part of Fife that I represent we have the Inverkeithing Swifts. One of the big issues that the club faces is that, at the community centre where they practise, the players are not allowed access to the sports centre's changing facilities, toilets and so on. Instead, they have had to go off and get one of those construction storage things. I find that bizarre. We have such facilities throughout Scotland; it is a question not of building new facilities but of rejigging the facilities that we have. Have you experienced a similar lack of connectedness?
The same thing is happening in Dundee, where the football team has now taken over the pavilion because their football pitch has been taken away from them by the council. The deal is that they now get to use the changing rooms at Caird park, which we are no longer allowed to use. The changing rooms that we had have been reduced to one toilet. The girls pay £1.80, but they have only one toilet. They also have to run through a big barrage of football players with their running gear on and they get abuse as they go in and out, so they do not want to use the toilet.
Exactly the same thing has happened with us. Football has taken priority. There used to be more facilities at the pavilion, but they were taken away to make offices for the council's sports development people. There are now eight, nine or 10 people in offices there and we have nothing except our club rooms.
That is very helpful. Thank you.
Yes, it is very helpful. Michael Matheson's question will be the final one.
I am looking for some clarification on the answer that you gave about supporting university students in undertaking sport. You said that people who want to do sport at Loughborough University are limited by the courses that are offered there. One school of thought says that we should have a university of sport in Scotland, but others argue that it is better to have a more flexible approach, in which the support goes to the student irrespective of the university. That would allow the student to do the course that they want to do. Is that your thinking?
It is difficult to do that. In an ideal world, where we had all the money that we needed, it would be great to have a university that could cater for sportspeople while providing the degree courses that they want. That would be great in a perfect world, but it is never going to happen.
So do you think that we should go for a university of sport with a single campus?
It would be great, but it is impossible to offer all the courses that would meet everyone's needs. It is difficult for an individual who is studying medicine at the University of Dundee to get five hours a week off to go and run. The courses could not be as individualised as that; a course is a course. The onus falls on the athlete to choose whether to do their sport first and then fall back on something such as medicine or law or whatever at the end of their sporting career, or to try and combine the two and get as much support as they possibly can.
I thank you very much. I am sure that other committee members are looking forward to reading your evidence, although we will have absorbed it today. Other people will have the opportunity of reading your evidence, which will be on the web in five or six days. You have given us a great deal of food for thought and made many interesting points. Thank you.
Thank you.
Before I suspend the meeting, I tell the committee that Craig Brewster is coming to give evidence to the committee on 23 April.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—