Charlie "the mailman" Flynn was in typically captivating form when delivering once more in helping North Lanarkshire Leisure (NLL) launch new facilities in Wishaw this week.

"I just want to thank everyone because I get all the access for nothing," he told the assembled audience, to laughter all round.

"It's paid off massively and you got a gold medal in exchange, come on...

"Aye but honestly, a top sports facility for everyone, not for top athletes, but capable of training the best, capable for everyone, great to see it's great for families. Brilliantly priced... not that I know about it!"

Cue further laughter and rightly so because the 21-year-old is a natural entertainer.

Yet there was a serious point in that there are parts of the world with much lower levels of deprivation where every youngster would get free use of what are effectively municipal facilities, albeit now run by trusts.

As one who has deep reservations about boxing for reasons outlined many times previously, but is a great admirer of Flynn's, it was a privilege to get to see him perform and also to witness what has been done by NLL in turning a tired facility into something special.

Funded by what the trust's chief executive Blaine Dodds describes as "the Robin Hood approach" it takes funds raised from those deemed able to afford it to subsidise those who cannot, which seems wholly reasonable and his is an organisation with a multi-million pound turnover.

However the NLL invitation was one of two received as a result of the column which filled this space last week in which I questioned how sport is delivered to youngsters in Scotland, the other having coming from A&M Training which, set up by former Dundee United footballer Andy McLaren, operates out of Springburn.

Their set-up revolves around free provision of football and dance for youngsters from some of Glasgow's toughest schemes - 26 in all at the moment - and at their Petershill Leisure Centre base alone they deal with youngsters from 82 different ethnic backgrounds regularly, speaking 50 different languages.

They bus participants to their venues and provide food because very few have access to mum and dad taxis and some are not getting proper nutrition.

Some £2 million has been raised over the past five years to fund their activities, but they seem to find it much more difficult to get that support from mainstream channels with, they claim, one of the reasons for that being the very fact that they offer services for free so "they will not be valued."

Much of the money raised ends up, perversely, being paid back to Glasgow Life for facility hire.

McLaren, originally from Castlemilk, expressed frustration at, during a 26-mile fund-raising kilt walk from Hampden Park to Loch Lomond last Sunday, walking past countless unused fenced-off football pitches which he sees as symbolic.

Like Richard from Easterhouse, whose message I reported last week, he clearly feels he is talked down to by middle class people who think they know best what is required for these youngsters.

Clearly both the NLL and A&M models are driven by the best of intentions but while the former will not thank me for saying so, in their ways they represent different philosophies which could almost, only slightly simplistically, be characterised as patronage versus community-driven.

This in a country which, throughout my life, has been dominated by two political parties which claim to espouse left of centre values and to promote versions of social democracy.

One claims to represent working people and to prioritise protection of society's poorest, the other has championed the Nordic model when it comes to how small countries can be successful.

Yet when a genuine opportunity to follow through presents itself in this field of sport, both seem to have ignored examples from nearby Scandinavia that are all about providing facilities for all.

As a contributor to our letters page noted in response to last week's column, this is not a party political issue, it is a philosophical one about the type of country we want to live in.

In analysing all of this a huge part of the problem is that unlike in Scandinavia, what information our politicians have when considering this subject is generated by the very bodies that stand to benefit most by protecting the status quo.

The issue is not purely about facilities, it is about wider sporting culture, but much of that is facilities-led in terms of creating the environment needed to transform it.

The timing, then, of an initiative launched this week by Charlie Raeburn, Scotland's representative on the International Schoolsports Federation Executive on his website www.spotlightonsport.com and his plans to stage a seminar to discuss why it is needed, could hardly be more timely.

Raeburn believes there is not that big a difference between what Denmark spends on funding sport and what we spend here in Scotland, however he also believes we spend our money on the wrong things, largely tier upon tier of career administrators.

The project he wants to create, a Scandinavian-style "Observatory for Sport", also requires funding, but if set up it could ensure that politicians are much better able to ensure that public money - tax and lottery generated - is effectively spent.

Just how the existing sporting establishment reacts will be informative, as will the response of the politicians of various hues.