For many Scots, the 1978 World Cup in Argentina was a turningpoint in the history of Scottish football. 'Wha's like us?' was thebattle cry, and the Tartan Army believed that we could take on therest of the world and beat them out of the park. Ally McLeod,Scotland's hyper-optimistic manager, had convinced everybody andtheir granny that Scotland's name was on the World Cup and, when itdid not happen, there was a prolonged national hangover.
In retrospect, we can now recognise that expectations on thatoccasion were unrealistically high, but nowadays we seem to have adifferent problem in that expectations and aspirations in Scottishsport are not high enough, even among our most talented athletes.
Last week, at the Annual Forum of the Scottish Institute ofSport, there was a discussion about a recent survey of theinstitute's athletes. They number about 140 elite Scottish sportsmenand women, specialising in 10 different sports, and they include 16athletes who competed in the recent Olympics and nine who competedin the Paralympics. They are the creme de la creme of Scotland'ssporting talent.
The survey revealed that just over 60% of them aspired to be thebest in the world. Some obvious questions arise: why do more of ourbest athletes not aim for the top? Is there something about theScottish psyche which lowers, rather than raises, expectations? Isthe Argentinian hangover still with us?
If we are going to raise aspirations then we must start with theyoung people in our schools. There are now more than 200 schoolsports co-ordinators in Scotland and the Scottish Executive aims tohave one in every Scottish school by the year 2003. The sports co-ordinators, in co-operation with other school staff, will have theresponsibility for the promotion of sporting opportunities for allyoung people, but hopefully they will also help to identify andnurture exceptional talent. It is absolutely vital that highlygifted young athletes are given the opportunities and facilities todevelop their potential, but it is also important to motivate themso that more of them will aspire to become the best in the world.
The Scottish Executive should also look at the possibility ofmore schools which specialise in maximising the potential ofexceptionally talented young athletes, perhaps learning from theexperience of the Glasgow School of Sport at Bellahouston Academy,which takes in talented young athletes from all over the city.
Much can also be learned from overseas. In Finland, for example,a country of similar population to Scotland, there is a network of12 national sports schools, offering a specialist service to about1600 talented young athletes. The annual cost of the network is only#1m. The sports students also attend mainstream classes with otherstudents and there is no evidence that their academic performancesuffers in any way. On the contrary, physical fitness seems toenhance performance in other subjects.
Professor Ian Thomson of Stirling University and DavidFairweather of Falkirk College visited Finland last year andproduced a report about the Finnish sports schools. Last week theygave a presentation to the cross-party sports group in the ScottishParliament and Alan Wilson, the new Sports Minister, now has a copyof their report. I hope that the Minister reads it and givespositive consideration to the ideas contained in it.
In England, the Government has recently allocated #3.4m toimprove facilities for sports schools and a similar sum for annualrunning costs but there has been no corresponding investment insports schools for Scotland. In the Scottish Parliament lastThursday, Sam Galbraith announced that, over the next three years,Scottish sport will receive an additional #9m, a combination ofExchequer grant and lottery funding. That is good news, and perhapssome of the money could be invested in sports schools.
Investment in sports opportunities for the young people ofScotland is an investment in the health and well-being of the nationas well as an investment in Scotland's future success ininternational competitions.
Ally McLeod may have raised false expectations away back in 1978,but maybe even Ally's dream can become a reality if the ScottishExecutive develops a successful strategy to give Scotland's youth asporting chance.
