Health and Sport Committee, 27 Feb 2008

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Official Report 169KB pdf

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Pathways into Sport Inquiry

Agenda item 2 is our pathways into sport inquiry. I am pleased to welcome Rhona Martin, who is the first in a series of successful sportspeople who will give evidence to the committee during the first phase of the inquiry. She has had some journey this morning. Perhaps she would have come faster if she had travelled on an ice rink. As members know, Rhona is a previous winner of the Scottish curling championships and she was skip of the Olympic gold medal-winning Great Britain curling team in 2002. She has agreed to make a short presentation to the committee before she answers members' questions. The floor is hers.

I will give a brief history of my curling career.

I did not start curling until I was 17, so I was quite a late starter. I was leaving school and wanted to try something new. My brother played the sport, which is why I tried it. I spent a few years in the juniors—the under-21s—travelled around Scotland and enjoyed the sport, which is a good, social sport. I met loads of people and got to travel a lot, which is what I was looking for in a hobby.

It was then decided that curling would be an Olympic medal sport. I had been at world junior and European championships, but there was no intense training, back-up or support then. As soon as it was decided that curling would be an Olympic medal sport, the Scottish Institute of Sport made it a core sport. It was great to get all the services that the institute provided, such as psychology, video analysis and nutrition services—areas that we had never touched on before when we played the sport. Through sportscotland, we received lottery funding, thankfully, which allowed us to travel abroad to competitions and gain more experience. We did that for many years.

The first year in which curling was an Olympic medal sport was 1998. We lost the final in that year, which was not good, so we decided that we would train as a team over the next four years and give it our all in 2002. We got to Salt Lake City in that year and got a great result. Then the selection system in Britain changed for the Turin Olympics. Thankfully, I was selected to go there. We did not get such a good result, but the profile of curling was certainly raised a great deal through television coverage. It is a minority sport that did not get a lot of coverage, so for us that was great. People were made aware of what curling was about, especially in England, where they did not know about it.

I retired from competitive curling last year, having curled competitively for Scotland for 22 years. I decided to call it a day and am now in coaching. I am currently employed by UK Sport for 50 per cent of my time, on its elite coach programme, and by the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, the sport's governing body, for the other 50 per cent, helping to coach elite athletes in this country. I have been doing that for the past year.

That is a brief outline of my curling career.

Thank you. Committee members will now ask questions.

We are very pleased and privileged to have the chance to quiz you today about your experiences. It is especially nice to have you here because one of your team members, Debbie Knox from Lochgelly, is a constituent of mine.

I knew that you would get Fife in, Helen.

You could depend on it, convener.

What barriers are faced by athletes who are trying to get into competitive sport? It would be good if you could relate your answer to your own experiences.

In competitive sports, to play at the higher level or even just participate, the main barrier that we face is the lack of access to facilities. Curling has a season of nine months maximum—it is usually eight months—so we have to share facilities with skating and ice hockey. At some facilities, there are only three days of curling a week. We do not always have access to facilities, and the number of facilities is not great. Trying to encourage school children and bussing them to the facilities is a problem when there are no facilities close to them. The lack of facilities is definitely a barrier to encouraging more people into the sport because a lot of travelling is involved.

I guess that one of the issues is finance and people's ability to access finance. How were you able to overcome that when you got all the way to Salt Lake City? Right from the early days, there must have been issues with finance for everything that you have spoken about. As you gradually climbed the ladder, how did you overcome the financial barriers?

I was lucky because I had my parents' support when I was young. We held a lot of fundraising events—bag packing in supermarkets, and so on—for our team, so that we could go abroad and enter competitions to gain experience. We felt that that was very important. Lottery funding was a big help to us because it helped to cover the costs of our sport. Now, a pathway exists for elite-level athletes to progress even further.

If you could wave a magic wand and wish for something to change about the way in which we organise competitive sports, what would it be?

There would probably be quite a few things that I would change. Aside from facilities, coaching is our big problem—95 per cent of the coaches in our sport are volunteers. We need full-time coaches at ice rinks around the country to do the job day in, day out. That would give people like me, who have been involved in the sport, an opportunity to give something back to the sport and to progress on the coaching side as well.

Having started the sport at 17 because your brother was a curler and you wanted something different, you have turned out to be a great asset to the country. From what you said, things have changed significantly over the past 22 years, in that curling is now an Olympic sport that attracts TV coverage, and elite curlers now get a lot of back-up.

How do we get people into sports such as curling? What could or should be done in schools to get young people—even younger than 17—interested in curling? Do we need more facilities to encourage people to try the sport to see whether they like it? As a representative—as Rhoda Grant is—of the Highlands and Islands, I think that it might be more difficult for someone to achieve their ambitions to be a curler if they live in north-west Sutherland. How do you get young people in schools to sample the sport?

After the Salt Lake City winter Olympics, a company produced an indoor curling set with stones that run on castors to a target. For the past five years, I have taken a set into schools to give pupils an idea of the sport and to encourage them to try curling. We run a curling school programme over a six-week block that allows primary 7 pupils to try the sport. One barrier we face is that schools may not have transport to get to facilities. Many other sports can be taken into schools but, for curling, people need to travel to the ice rink. This year, about 6,000 primary 7 schoolchildren have been through our curling school programme. After the programme, pupils who want to get involved in the sport can move on to after-school clubs or join junior clubs. However, as I said, we do not have enough coaches at ice rinks to move on as fast as we would like.

So a structure is in place. Is that funded by sportscotland or the Scottish Institute of Sport?

Our governing body and sportscotland have development officers in place. The development officers around the country try to get primary 7 schoolchildren into our programme. The development officers also deal with senior schools, as we are also trying to encourage older pupils to take up the sport.

Are youngsters enthusiastic about curling—as opposed to other sports—once it has been shown to them?

Absolutely—they love it. They think it looks easy but then they fall over on the ice when they come in. They think it is fun and they really enjoy it because it is completely different. Many youngsters have never previously had the chance to try it out.

The geographical issue that Mary Scanlon mentioned affects many of our constituencies. Are the schools that you have visited scattered across Scotland or are they all in the central belt?

We have visited schools throughout Scotland. The development officers whom the governing body has put in place are spread throughout the country, from the Highlands and Islands down to Lockerbie and Dumfries. We try to involve schools from across the country, but transport can be a problem, especially for schools in rural areas.

How do schools apply for the curling school programme? How do they find out about it? I had never heard of the programme.

The curling school programme has been running for a long time—even before we went to Salt Lake City. When I was involved in the programme for a year in Ayrshire, we persuaded the schools to change from a six-week swimming block to three weeks of swimming and three weeks of curling. The pupils loved it.

We need coaches in ice rinks who can constantly target schools to get them involved. The barrier that we face is that, if headteachers cannot afford to pay for transport from their school's budget, the schools will not get involved.

I am very interested in what you are saying. I am also interested in how people progress from being participants who just enjoy the sport to becoming elite players. What is the career path for such individuals? Do you, as someone who has retired from competitive sport but is still coaching, think that we have it right at the moment? For example, from the 6,000 pupils on the curling school programme, are you able to select youngsters who might continue with curling? Is there a process by which those who show aptitude are encouraged so that we can form a group of potentially competitive elite sportsmen? Are they given the support, encouragement, finance—and space, if they are working—that they need? What are the arrangements, and are they appropriate?

There is a good structure in place. To qualify for the regional academies, which gets them extra coaching, youngsters do not need to have won anything. They just need to have been at competitions and to have been seen. I have been working with the regional academy in Ayrshire for the past year. Youngsters can then progress to the national academy. At that level, we bring in the psychology, video analysis and advice on nutrition. That is before they get to the Scottish Institute of Sport level.

When I came through, there was nothing for youngsters, but we now have a good structure and youngsters are given information, help and coaching. The pathway definitely exists to enable people to reach the Scottish Institute of Sport level and to get help and support at the elite level.

Do people get funding to go to the national academy?

Yes. We have a certain number of squad weekends a year with the national academy, on and off the ice, and we fund people to go abroad to get more experience in Canada. They get a couple of trips a year.

We have eight teams in the national academy. At the moment, a good number of youngsters are coming through, and below that we have the regional academies throughout the country, from the Highlands to Dumfries and Galloway.

It certainly sounds as if progress is being made.

When people progress into elite sport and then retire from active competition, they often want to give something back. What career advice is available to them? People might not make the top grade, but they might want to become coaches or whatever. Are there adequate opportunities for individuals to progress in some way within the sport, even if not to the elite level? Alternatively, people at the elite level might be injured or might retire from active sport. What advice do people get about that? What advice did you get?

At the Scottish Institute of Sport we have performance lifestyle advisers, who work with all the athletes who have been competing and help them. While athletes are competing, the lifestyle advisers can speak to schools and colleges to help them get time off for world championships and things like that. They help the youngsters to plan their schedules, because a lot of them struggle to commit to the sport as well as to their studies. That is a big help to them.

I spent quite a lot of time with the advisers. Having had children and then committed 100 per cent to curling, I had not worked for 18 years, so it was difficult for me to get back into work. I did hotel catering at college, but that was sidelined because such work involves weekend work and I wanted to curl, so I did not have much experience. I wanted to put something back into the sport and, thankfully, the opportunity to do so came up. The advisers are there to help and advise and they have contacts everywhere, so they are a big help to the athletes.

I presume that the national academy is a virtual academy. Is that correct, or is there a centre?

There is no centre. We have been trying to get a centre of excellence for curling built in Scotland, but it has not happened yet. Such a national centre would be great. Because the people in the national academy come from throughout the country, we tend to have one event down in Ayrshire and one up north. We try to spread them around. However, the regional academies and the national academy weekly coaching are all done in local ice rinks.

I wanted to give you an opportunity to put that on the record, because in the preparations for the 2012 Olympics, there is the potential to develop specialist regional centres for each sport at United Kingdom level. I am surprised that we do not have a centre of excellence for curling. What have been the barriers to that? Are there firm proposals that are just awaiting funding?

No, I think the funding was there. Land was looked for and it was thought that it had been obtained, but that turned out not to be the case. I have not heard the most recent update. Perhaps someone else will know what is happening; I do not. The plans were all in place. A national centre of excellence would be great for our sport because it would mean that all the equipment would be in one place and we could just bring people in.

Michael Matheson might be able to enlighten us.

I understand that the centre of excellence is meant to be in Stirling. I think that there is an issue to do with the national and regional sports facilities strategy, which is about the local authority coming up with its share of the money to make the centre happen. Local authority funding has been an issue with quite a few of the facilities that are associated with the strategy. I understand that that was a problem in this case, although I do not know whether the situation has changed.

I will pick up on the curling school programme, which between 6,000 and 7,000 kids have gone through this year. Does it work effectively as a conversion programme? In other words, once kids have done the programme for six weeks or however long it lasts, do they go on to take up the sport? Can you give us an idea of how many kids might go into the sport after trying out the programme?

Quite a few kids come into the sport through the programme, but the problem is keeping them involved. We do not have enough coaches at ice rinks to run effective programmes. Many youngsters come to after-school clubs, and are then filtered through to the junior clubs at each ice rink. Young people are coming through into the sport, but not nearly as many as we would like.

We do skill awards with the school kids to give them motivation. They are interested in the sport and they want to keep going with it, but the problem is where they go to curl. If they cannot travel however many miles it is to the nearest ice rink after school, they will not be able to participate.

You mentioned a shortage of coaching staff. Is it a question of having enough part-time or full-time coaches at curling facilities to bring on children who decide to continue with the sport?

Absolutely. The governing body employs some development officers, but each ice rink needs someone who can coach full time or part time. A handful of us coach the elite-level athletes, but we need to nurture kids at the level below that who are the future of the sport. The annoying thing is that they are all keen to get involved—they are desperate to take it up.

As I said, curling is a great social sport. The youngest member of my club is 12 and the oldest is 80. The fact that people from a wide age range play together means that it is a great social sport for kids to be involved in, but we cannot seem to hold on to them.

That is helpful.

You mentioned the benefit that lottery funding provided in allowing you to compete on the international stage. You will no doubt be aware of concerns about the reduction in the amount of lottery funding that will go to sport. To what extent did competing at international level help to make you an Olympic champion? If you had not competed internationally, would you have been able to get up to that level?

Definitely not. People have to be put in pressure situations. A person can practise all they like at a sport, but they will not find out how they might deal with a pressure situation until they have been put in one. It is also necessary to be able to deal with crowds. Until you experience 10,000 Canadians cheering you or booing you, you cannot legislate for how you will react.

The psychology work was new to us—we were a bit wary of it at first, because we had curled for many years without a psychologist—but it definitely helped us. It is one of a number of factors that play a huge part. In our sport, the skill of throwing the shot will win the game, but all the extra areas that we were allowed to dabble in helped us to perform. It is necessary to go abroad to gain that experience. Canada has more than 2 million curlers, whereas we have only 15,000. In Canada, curling is on a high level and is televised every weekend. Curlers in Canada are used to that scene. For us to reach that level and to be able to beat Canada, we must perform in that environment so that we can learn from it.

That is my next point. How does the level of support that we give our curling athletes to enable them to compete at an international level compare with that given by our competitors?

We are doing a good job on the elite side. We have won world junior and world men's titles, and European and Olympic titles. We have won all those titles in the past decade, so the sport is doing something right. However, we must keep moving forward because that is what other countries are doing.

Many of the foreigners, especially the Canadians, looked at what we were doing when we won the Olympics. That was good, and we are on top now, but we need to stay there and keep moving forward. With the help of the Scottish Institute of Sport and sportscotland, we are doing that. However, my concern is with the youngsters coming through, who are the future of the sport—without them, we will not be at the top.

My final question is on the issue of resources overall. Do winter sports—if I may refer to curling as a winter sport—get a fair slice of the cake in relation to support for athletes compared with what track-and-field sports get?

I do not know what the track-and-field or summer sports get. Obviously, I have seen curling develop from having no lottery funding and no help, right through to the present position—it has been great to see the difference. We probably get less than other sports get, but if we use the money that we get to compete at world level and win, that is great because it means that we are getting the money that we need to compete at that level. However, the problem is with the funding below that level, and we need to look at that. We have a good structure in place just now and a pathway for the elite athletes to move forward; the problem is with the level underneath that.

Is the figure of 15,000 that you mentioned the number of people who participate in curling at the gentle team level at their local ice rink?

It is club-level curlers who are affiliated to the governing body.

How many are there at elite level?

At elite level, the Scottish institute has roughly five full teams—some individuals are in there as well—and the national academy's teams are below that level. We are talking about a low number.

Which is?

Well, with the institute's four or five teams, the national academy's eight teams and the regional academy, we have perhaps 40 athletes throughout the country. There are fewer than 100 on the elite pathway.

The committee is obviously looking at trying to get the public at large engaged in sport, and I was wondering how many curl at a gentler pace than the pace of your level.

In the past two years, we have been holding come-and-try days for all age groups at every ice rink. We are not just targeting children; we are trying to increase participation in clubs.

I will follow up the questions that Michael Matheson asked about the difficult issue of coaching. I must confess that I am tempted to ask whether you currently coach our youngsters always to win their matches with the final shot on the final end, but I will not ask that—perhaps that way of winning should not be passed on because of the suspense that it caused in the nation. I hope that you are coaching the youngsters to win rather earlier in the proceedings, wonderful though the win was.

You have been helpful in exposing a difficult gap and honest in saying that the elite path currently works reasonably well, and that your concerns are more about sustaining the flow through. You also expressed the view that, ideally, it would be good to have more full-time coaches, particularly at ice rinks. Although I will have to wait to hear the others who will give evidence in this inquiry, I suspect that, given that we do not have many majority sports—most of the sports that we will hear from are, I think, effectively minority sports—the problem that you highlighted will be reasonably common.

I want to press you a bit on that gap. To go simply from being a volunteer to being full time is difficult in any sport, in commitment terms and, in particular, in cost terms. How can we use resources to try to bridge that gap and ensure that more coaches are available in curling to bring on the youngsters? That is the nub of the matter. Wild enthusiasts come along, but they are not doing the full-time job that you would like them to do. The resource issue might mean that a structure is needed to bridge the gap. Can you help us with that?

The governing body in Scotland runs a coaching programme—coaches have a level 1 or level 2 pass. All those coaches are volunteers. We have coaches who are trained to provide the service but, as they are only volunteers, they might do a limited number of hours a week. That is great—perhaps such a coach will run a junior club or an after-school club. People are interested in helping the sport but, in modern life, they need to be reimbursed for their effort or the hours that they put in. An ice rink would have a huge boost if somebody could be funded just to be there 20 hours a week to run the different clubs, to help juniors through and to direct juniors in the right way. The people are there and are keen, but not a lot of curlers who have been at my level can go and coach in the sport. We have many good coaches around the country in all ice rinks, but we must find a way to involve them more. We cannot ask for any more from the volunteers, who do a lot in their hours.

I understand that. If we strip all that away, the issue is about resources—money.

Absolutely.

The committee's inquiry is on improving pathways into sport and on encouraging broader sporting engagement throughout Scotland. In answer to an earlier question, you gave a good example of a six-week swimming programme that you managed to split into one three-week swimming section and one three-week curling section. The more sports that are involved, the more difficult the situation is because, below a minimum period, the activity would not be worth while—young people would not be sufficiently interested in or aware of the activity for it to have an impact. What is the minimum slot that any sport would have to have in a school to have any effect?

Our curling's cool programme has a four-week slot at the moment, because we felt that many schools were put off by the cost of transport for six weeks. We went down to four weeks but had longer sessions. That length of time is ideal, because kids can finish the programme and get their wee skill awards and they are happy. Then they ask, "What do we do now?" and we tell them about after-school clubs and junior clubs. The kids are keen and are going on from that programme.

There is a huge cultural change. When I was a member of a junior club many moons ago, it had more than 100 members. My ice rink's junior club now has eight members. Many ice rinks are struggling to recruit juniors, which is where the gap exists. When I played in the Scottish junior championships, more than 40 teams entered. This year, the competition went straight to the Scottish finals, because only eight teams were involved. The number of juniors is dropping. As you say, the question is how we get volunteers to step up. Our governing body has a coaching programme in place to ensure that all the people who are involved are qualified, but the issue is getting them to do the hours that we need them to do.

That is a serious point. Why has the number of juniors fallen off? It is not many years since your Olympic success.

Children are keen but, as I said, some facilities have shut. Ice rinks are used for hockey, skating and curling, and curling has perhaps only three days a week, so what can be done is limited. Kids are a lot busier nowadays, so we knew that there would be a drop-off, but the drop-off has been dramatic. That is why we are encouraging adoption of the curling's cool programme throughout the country. Our governing body is looking into coaching now really to try to progress those kids.

We felt that there was a drop-off at 16 or 17 as well. Although "juniors" means under-21s, we have now started an under-17s league. The younger people play in that, and we hold them there until we progress them into the under-21s league. That step has been good as well.

Will you expand on what your four-week programme involves? How often do the children come? Is it once a week?

They come once a week for four weeks. When the programme was six weeks, they came for an hour but, since we moved to a four-week programme, we try to do an hour and a half.

Transport and other costs are sewn into that.

I will go back to the point about getting young people involved in the sport. Rhona Martin talked about going into schools. The curling in schools programme is good, but what are the barriers for young people who take part in it? You say that the schools struggle with the expense of allowing children to go on the programme for four weeks. Someone from a not very well-off background would not be able to follow through and become a member of a club if they faced the same cost barriers.

Because the ice rinks are not within walking distance of schools, children cannot go along to after-school clubs if their parents are not there to give them a run at that time. In rural areas, unless the parents are willing to give them a run, the children do not come. We have tried the odd pilot scheme bussing children into after-school clubs. Those were good, but their purpose was just to find out how the approach worked and we cannot fund it every week. The purpose was also to find out whether the kids really were that keen, which they were. They want to come, but the main barrier is getting to the ice rink.

We are limited by the times that curling has in certain ice rinks and the limited time that the coach has. If a coach was there even three days a week full time, the kids could go when they wanted to go.

I do not know the solution to getting the kids in. We are putting them through and they enjoy it, but we cannot keep them.

Transport is an obvious cost. In the Highlands and Islands, which Mary Scanlon and I represent, the cost to people is huge because the number of ice rinks is limited. What other costs are involved in the sport? What would the other cost barriers be for a young person who lived in the centre of Glasgow, for example, where the ice rink is a short bus ride away?

There is no cost for equipment. There are stones at the ice rink, so young people do not need to get them. They can have their own shoes but they do not need to. The ice rink can also supply sliders and brushes. The children do not need any equipment of their own.

What ice rinks charge juniors varies. It can be £1 for a two-hour session. Braehead shopping and leisure centre runs a really good junior club, where the children have an hour on the ice, come off for juice and a biscuit and go back on for another hour. They pay £2 for two hours of curling, which is great. That is in a good location, because the parents can go shopping at Braehead and leave the kids under supervision for two hours, which is great. However, it is not the same in every area.

So the main barrier is really access to rinks and the cost of getting children to them.

I want to follow up on the point that, apart from the grand bonspiel on the Lake of Menteith, which takes place about every 15 years, curling is an indoor sport that needs a rink. Will you tell me a bit more about the number of rinks in Scotland that are accessible to ordinary curlers? Are there any private rinks, and are they open to talented people? How many rinks are there in Scotland? Is the number adequate?

We had more than 30, but the number has reduced—a couple have closed in the past few years. The dedicated curling rinks, such as my home rink—Greenacres curling rink—are out in the middle of nowhere, so unless children have parents or buses to take them there, they cannot go. There is no public transport to Greenacres, but it is a curling rink seven days a week. Gogar ice rink was a dedicated curling rink, but it shut two years ago.

We are losing the dedicated rinks. The council-run ones may have curling only three days a week. The Magnum centre in Irvine stopped curling last year. We are losing those facilities. There are probably 26 rinks in the country that have curling, but only a handful of dedicated curling rinks have curling seven days a week. Unfortunately, rinks are often not accessible, although Braehead is good as it is accessible seven days a week.

In the rinks that are not dedicated to curling, what proportion of time is allocated to curling? Has that changed over the past few years?

No—because skating and ice hockey bring the money into the ice rinks. Rather than have the junior curlers in, who perhaps pay only £1 a head, the ice rinks have to look at their revenue and their profit, so ice hockey and skating win.

School holidays are a great time to run a curling camp or a week's coaching, but those ice rinks all have skating full time in the holidays, because they make more money from that.

Has the proportion of time that is devoted to curling at an average public ice rink changed?

No, not really. We have just lost a couple of ice rinks that were dedicated curling rinks. The remaining curling rinks are still there seven days a week, but the other rinks probably have curling three days a week.

So, since your success in the Olympics, the number of young people coming into curling has diminished, the number of rinks available in Scotland has diminished and the amount of ice time has not increased. What does that say about the benefit of elite sport in encouraging sport in Scotland?

It is very disappointing. I am disappointed, because when we came back we were very happy about the media coverage that we got—we had not realised that it was even being shown in Scotland. When we came back and realised that people had been watching curling, we thought, "Great! People now know what it is." We are succeeding at elite level and the youngsters are coming in, but we cannot keep them. That is the biggest problem, and it is disappointing.

What is great is that at any school that I go into, the pupils are encouraged. They would love to try indoor curling—they want to come and try it. They are very enthusiastic and like to touch the medal. That is great, if it encourages youngsters to take part in any sport, but it is disappointing when they do not stay in the sport.

I will take you back to your school days. You said that when you were 17, your brother was engaged in curling. Did you take part in sport before that?

I did the usual sports at school: hockey, badminton and swimming. When I was about to leave school, I wanted a hobby that was different. My four older brothers all golfed, so they wanted me to golf, but I said that I could not be bothered because the putting had to be too precise.

There you go—there is an irony in that, is there not?

My brother won the Scottish junior championships and went to Canada. I went to watch and I thought, "This is great. Everybody is sociable, it is a great sport and it is great fun."

I ask because children used to run about the streets and play—they did their exercise that way—but they do not do that any more. We want to get them involved in sports. Yours was a sporting family.

Yes, it was.

When I go into schools and speak to the kids, particularly after Christmas, it seems that 90 per cent of the boys have Wiis, PlayStations and so on, which they sit and play. That is the culture that they are in, and this is about trying to get them out of that. The after-school clubs are great—the kids go to them straight from school, rather than going home and thinking, "I can't be bothered to go back out." We are trying to get them straight from school, so that they are doing something.

I think that the Parliament would share that motive.

Thank you very much for coming before the committee. It has been extremely interesting.

Congratulations from all of us. As Ross Finnie articulated on behalf of the committee, we all watched that win—we were on the edge of our seats. I hope that somebody does it differently another time, because we cannot keep our nails when we watch such close finishes.

Meeting continued in private until 12:23.