THE Gold Coast is beginning to call out to Louise Martin CBE. The outgoing chairwoman of Scottish sport funding body sportscotland will take up her prestigious new role as president of the Commonwealth Games Federation in June and thoughts of Australia, where the next games will be held in the summer of 2018, are starting to impact upon her day job. Like all the

best Commonwealth or Olympic athletes, though, Martin is determined that she should fight to the finish.

“I’m gradually getting into it,” Martin says. “It’s hotting up because everybody wants a piece of you. But I’ve got a job to do here which I have to finish.

And I want to finish it properly. I’ve done eight years and it’s been the most exciting times in Scottish sport. It’s been extra special and what we’ve done in that spell has been tremendous.”

Say what you like about sportscotland, but Martin can hardly be accused of not putting 100 per cent into the role.

The chairmanship of sportscotland is a part-time post which attracts a remuneration

of £230 per day for a time commitment of 6.5 days per month but that job description hardly covers the amount of extra time Martin has put into the post.

“I love sport and I love being

in it,” said Martin. “I’m hands-on but I’m not operational. I sit and listen then go out and do the strategic stuff. And it helped the senior management team that they could always speak to me.

I could be on duty every single day and weekend with all the invites, but you have to work across all governing bodies so no-one says ‘they didn’t see me’

or ‘you didn’t do this’.”

As much as Martin says she has “loved every minute” of

an eight-year tenure which has placed unprecedented emphasis on elite performance around the London Olympics in 2012 and the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, there have been frustrations along the way.

Not least of these is persuading government agencies such as local health boards it is in their interests to work more closely with the sports body to help improve health outcomes together. Making a breakthrough on that will be top of new sportscotland chairman Mel Young’s in-tray when he formally takes over the post in June.

“In my second year, Stewart Harris [sportscotland chief executive] and I did a presentation to the health boards, saying ‘we’re here and we want to work with you’,” Martin said. “But we haven’t managed to get through to that sector. With

Mel coming in, he’ll have that impetus, linking more closely with other government agencies.”

On the subject of budgets, Martin and Young spent Wednesday morning in session with the sports minister Jamie Hepburn thrashing out their cash the next year. Chancellor George Osborne sprung a rabbit out of the hat when he announced a

29 per cent funding increase for UK Sport in his autumn spending review, but that sum also included lottery money, and didn’t take into account the drop of a similar amount in local government funding, the front line for much sport delivery.

The bottom line is that budgets are expected to remain relatively stable for the next two years, with a further battle to be fought from 2018 onward.

“We were agreeing the way forward, the budget and how we were re-allocating the monies that we have,” said Martin.

“Nothing’s been cut dramatically. But we are taking a strategic look at everything for the next couple of years as we go and then we have to see when the next budget comes in. I’m happy with the way things are going at the moment. We’re in a good place. I will miss it.”

Martin’s buzz phrase is ‘community sports hubs’, bases where sport clubs and local organisations share information, resources and expertise, a model which could be productively used across the Commonwealth. For instance, it is now being adopted in New Zealand.

“The new role I’m going into,

I will still work with people in sportscotland because I know the work that’s being done here and

I want that replicated throughout the Commonwealth,” added Martin. “I’m in a prime position to talk to other countries and say: ‘here’s what’s going on in Scotland, here you go’.”

Whatever happens under the chairmanship of Young, Martin believes Scottish sport is in safe hands. “I’ve no idea how Mel

will chair,” said Martin, of the president and founder of the Homeless World Cup.

“But we’ve got a great board. It’s not a ‘Yes’ board. They really get into it and ask the difficult questions but they’re very fair and they believe in sport in Scotland. We’ll be working through the Community Sports Hubs, bringing people through, increasing physical activity, encouraging them to be part of something leisure-related.

“You might not be at the level of an elite sports person but as long as you can enjoy the level you’re at, then we’ve got to be happy.”