The grass-roots of university sport are withering
US university sport benefits from much greater support than in the UK
A poll on the website of the Community Amateur Sports Club this week asks visitors to vote on whether they think grass-roots sport is (a) blossoming or (b) withering on the vine. Mixed metaphors aside, the results were as overwhelming as they were predictable. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t get much more grass-roots than a wet Wednesday afternoon at Peffermill and in a way it’s understandable that nobody much fancies spending eighty or ninety minutes freezing to death on the touchline when they could be in the pub or in the library.
But last season Edinburgh University’s football team qualified for the third round of the Scottish Cup for the first time in over a century. Even though a win against Cove Rangers could have brought a historic game against the likes of Hearts, Hibs or Rangers, the game was seen by less than five hundred people. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, the 2007 College Soccer Final was played before of a capacity crowd of seven thousand at North Carolina State University.
Soccer, of course, is a minority sport in the USA – the average gate for college American football games is closer to fifty thousand. The average gate for a Heriot-Watt home game, on the other hand, is roughly two student reporters, ten substitutes, one man and his dog. Last season, eighteen Major League Soccer players were graduates from UCLA alone. This year, the only Edinburgh alumnus registered as a professional footballer in Britain is plying his trade at Albion Rovers. Even when you take into account the huge population difference, it is clear that the gulf in attitudes towards university-level sport in the UK and the USA is staggering.
It hasn’t always been this way. You only have to look across the border to the Premiership to see figures like Martin O’Neill, who was spotted by Nottingham Forest playing for Queen's University in Belfast, and Steve Coppell, who left his post as coach of the Liverpool University first team to sign for Manchester United. Closer to home, Andy Irvine turned out for Edinburgh in the late sixties and early seventies before eventually going on to become president of the Scottish Rugby Union. It wasn’t so long ago that playing a sport while you studied was a viable route into the professional game. So where did it all go wrong?
It is first and foremost a problem of infrastructure. Before we can expect students to get behind university sport, the universities themselves have to start taking it seriously. It is no accident that Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh finished level on points at the top of the BUSA Scottish Football Conference: few of the other teams in the league employ so much as a part-time coach. Glasgow University don’t even give students a Wednesday afternoon off to play sport – let’s hope the handful of medics, lawyers and engineers who regularly make up their teams don’t miss anything too important in the lectures they skip. Clearly dedication is not an issue.
Neither is talent. No-one lucky enough to have watched this year’s ‘Burgh Varsity games could question the quality on display, or the time and expertise imparted by coaches like Dougie Samuel and Ross Campbell. But the universities need to do more. With the 2012 Olympics around the corner, the UK Sports Council – whose mandate is to “lead sport in the UK to world-class success” – need to do more. College sport in the USA is a multi-million dollar industry that entertains thousands and produces athletes of the very highest level. I realise that hoping to compete with that might be a long shot, but we ought at least to have a slightly more level playing field. In the meantime, it wouldn't hurt for more students to get behind their university teams and help those grass-roots to blossom.
1 comments on The grass-roots of university sport are withering
Matt Ellis 5 months ago
As a UCLA alum, I should point out that even as one of America's pre-eminent soccer (football) schools, the crowds for one of our matches is hardly larger than in the U.K. The only University sports in the U.S. that regularly attract large crowds are American football and basketball. That's with the University pouring money and resources into sports like volleyball, gymnastics, track and tennis. UCLA has 22 separate intercollegiate sports...each with paid coaches, athletic scholarships and other resources. Almost all of those sports teams are contenders for national championships. But the only sports that draw crowds are football and basketball. Official University support will not be a panacea for sports. Student, alumni and community support for college sports is required. Frankly, that's hard to start from scratch. I don't know if the U.K. is ready for pep rallies, tailgating, bonfires and T.V. timeouts...but that's what it takes.