A GLASGOW community sports club, hailed as a model worth replicating around the city, claims it is being denied adequate access to facilities and prevented from expanding – even though it looks curiously akin to a community model now being touted as Scotland's Commonwealth Games legacy.
Parents at Broomhill Sports Club, which is self-funded, are frustrated and infuriated. They believe their vision exposes inadequacies of the national and local agencies, sportscotland and Glasgow Life, the charity running the city's culture and sport programme.
It is three-and-a-half years since Glasgow City Council identified an independent consultant to assess whether a then four-year-old Broomhill project could be replicated elsewhere in the city.
The exercise took 11 months and cost the council £10,000.
The structure was comprehensively analysed. The club had 718 members and a reported income of £145,000 for 2007/08 which they raised themselves.
There's a waiting list for their activities: football, hockey, netball, karate, and running, plus fitness training, drama, choir, social events and activities for children with learning difficulties. Fun and sport is the ethos, ages 5-18 the membership, which is inclusive regardless of ability to pay or perform. Bursaries are available. Coaches are qualified, and aspirations align with health-improvement policies.
Structure and governance were reported in glowing terms, but this was "a virtual club" with no home ground, premises or facilities, and reliant on school and community playing fields and sports centres. Hyndland School was provided free.
Yet it was concluded that the model could be replicated provided existing key elements were sustained. Sportscotland recommended the club and city council discuss becoming mutual partners, fund a development officer, establish a home base, and set up a pilot elsewhere in the city.
There has been some dialogue with both the council and sportscotland, but only short-term support. "It was suggested at one time that we look at a 'service level agreement'," said Broomhill founding committee member and spokesman, Steven Prince. "In fact we were told at one stage we would be allowed to build our own 3G pitch."
There is such a pitch at Scotstoun, but Broomhill have no stake in it. "Glasgow Life facilities often lie unused, but we can't access them. We're told there's a quota system, that some space has to be left for walk-up users. We depend on facilities in parts of Glasgow we don't belong to, such as Govan and Partick. We've gone as far as Hamilton and Paisley.
"We have asked to be part of Glasgow's pitch strategy, but they won't look at us."
A spokesman for Glasgow Life said last night they had fulfilled Broomhill's long-held aspiraton for a "home", even if not all under one roof. He said Glasgow Life sports development staff had brokered "a significant initiative", a deal with West of Scotland Cricket Club.
"No-one should be under the impression that we are anything other than impressed by the work of Broomhill Sports Club and the model they have developed," he said, adding that "it mirrors" the Community Sports Hubs initiative being adopted by Glasgow Life in partnership with sportscotland.
Sportscotland said they work with Glasgow agencies "to deliver shared outcomes and priorities for sport", which has included three years' investment in building capacity in sports clubs, coaching, and volunteering.
They find Broomhill's claim "remarkable" because they have "received significant support from both the officer working with sports clubs in the west of the city and Active Schools co-ordinators, including facility access, coach education and training and equipment". They, too, cited the access agreement with the cricket club.
However, this is dismissed as disingenuous by Broomhill: "Their claim that this is 'significant support' not only overstates their impact but massively underestimates what it is Broomhill and other groups actually do. Glasgow Life and sportscotland vastly overestimate their own value. To provide some cash for over-priced training courses and give us £300 for some mini goals is hardly 'significant'. We spend more than 10 times this on equipment. Working with West of Scotland Cricket Club ignores the fact that we had been talking to each other for years, and credit for this should go to Gordon Smith, the cricket club's new chair."
For the avoidance of doubt, he adds: "We're not asking for money - just the chance to replicate this in other areas. There is a critical period when kids stop doing sport, and we would like to see them invest in something that's proven to work."
Sportscotland acknowledge the success of the club, and are "supportive of the contribution they make to the local community", but add "There are many clubs across Scotland who, like Broomhill, are committed to working together to grow participation in sport".
Not ones which have been endorsed by public money for replication, however.
Glasgow sport development is the envy of cities even beyond the UK. Yet, on this issue, parents with a heavily endorsed model have at best been deluded and misled. If the city and sportscotland are singing from the same hynn sheet, it remains discordant.
Prince claims many Active Schools co-ordinators won't help them publisise activities because it detracts from what Glasgow Life is doing, and that they are refused hire of empty lets around Scotstoun on Saturday mornings because it detracts from the Glasgow Life-SFA sessions.
"Sports development appears to mean one thing to Glasgow Life, the SFA and sportscotland [jobs and funding] and another thing to us and other sports clubs [members and life-long participation]."
Failure to maximise use of the school estate dates back decades. Sportscotland say a total of 42 community hubs are under development, 26 of them in schools. They say these hubs must grow participation, community engagement, and participation, plus offer a range of sport opportunities and work in partnership.
Broomhill appears to do all of these, and more.
"Why are sportscotland not helping us develop many other inclusive and self-sustaining sports clubs like ourselves?" asks Prince "They told to go and work with Glasgow Life, and they rejected our ideas for their own. Why is this?"
Sportscotland has had recent criticism for lack of transparency. Broomhill are entitled to wonder if the project they launched more than seven years ago was dusted down and given a new name when First Minister Alex Salmond announced the Community Sport Hubs project in September 2009.
It seems Broomhill had already been running a successful one for five years. Have sportscotland and Glasgow Life just reinventing Broomhill's wheel, and spun it more expensively and less effectively?
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