Pitch battle: poor facilities in many areas

Some would argue that at a time when the sport of football has never been richer, the grassroots game deserves a lot more than it currently receives.

Dan Roan
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Sky Sports News' chief news reporter Dan Roan brings you his first blog as he investigates The State Of The Game.

You can check out his blog below - and don't forget to join the debate for yourself right here.

Grass-roots facilities

I can remember very few issues or stories we've covered here at Sky Sports News that have provoked a bigger or more passionate reaction from the public than our first State of the Game report on grassroots facilities.

Literally thousands of you have been getting in touch with both us and skysports.com, sharing your opinions and experiences. The vast majority paint a picture of sub-standard club changing rooms, poorly maintained public pitches and years of neglect.

Many are worrying, some are downright disturbing - take Simon Meekey from Northampton - he told us that he's now out for the rest of the season after injuring his leg on a shard of glass that had been left on a public pitch.

Or James Battock who reported that he broke his leg in three places because of the rutted pitch he was forced to play on in Watford.

There's Lee Elvidge of Nottingham who found a pair of scissors pointing up from the goalmouth at his local club, and teacher Dan Winch from the New Forest who's horrified by the facilities his pupils have to endure when they play. And Nigel Cross whose club Parcroft FC faces the threat of closure because a school is being built on the pitches they've used for years.

Many of you are angry about having to pay significant amounts of money for the dubious privilege of using such "facilities".

Some of you have positive stories to tell - Dean Simpson from Leicester of Beaumont Town FC who, like many, tells of the good work the Football Foundation has done putting much-needed investment into his and other local clubs. But sadly, it seems good news is in limited supply when it comes to footballing facilities

Matters

There are seven million amateur footballers in England, so it's no surprise that the state of the pitches and equipment matters to them. It's absolutely right that they do care because the state of the game's infrastructure is a fundamental issue - it impacts on the number of people playing the sport, and in turn, the country's chances of developing better players.

Football is the national game; at a grassroots level, unlike golf for example which has the support of well-funded private clubs, it relies on local councils to provide it with its facilities - but the sport is being let down, badly.

The timing for this debate is good for a number of reasons. In four years from now London will stage the Olympics, an event that promises to leave a lasting sporting legacy for future generations.

But if the Games are to truly inspire a more sporting, healthier nation, then it needs the pitches, changing rooms and clubhouses in place so that enthusiasm can be turned into participation. Right now, we're sadly lacking when it comes to football - 38% of the country's public pitches are without changing rooms and 94% need floodlights.

Football in this country is taking a long hard look at itself; England's failure to reach the Euro 2008 Finals forced our national game to enter a period of self-examination.

A root and branch review was promised by the FA on the day they relieved Steve McClaren of his duties. Even before that ghastly defeat to Croatia at Wembley back in November the governing body had committed itself to a new vision for the grassroots game - 20,000 stakeholders were asked for their views, resulting in a National Game Strategy announced last month.

£200million worth of investment for the grassroots game was promised, and will indeed be spent on a number of initiatives encouraging better behaviour, referee recruitment and youth development.

But the amount of money the FA are putting into facilities is not increasing - it's staying the same at £15million a year. In fact, it's less than it used to be - between 2001 and 2004 it was £20million! This at a time when the FA, by its own admission, is wealthier than ever before, able to afford to spend £6million a year on Fabio Capello, and hundreds of millions on a national stadium.

As the organisation responsible for the grassroots game, the FA admit they face a serious problem. Director of Development Sir Trevor Brooking says the money they invest in facilities is "not enough". Nigel Hargreaves, the FA's Head of Strategic Investment concedes facilities are "awful". Chairman Lord Triesman has appealed for more co-operation from local authorities.

Standard

The facts are these - since 2000 the FA, Government and Premier League have been funding partners for the biggest sports charity in the UK - the Football Foundation. By spending over £600million on facilities there's no doubt the Foundation has helped alleviate the problem to an extent, and drastically improved resources and indeed participation in many parts of the country.

But Paul Thorogood, the Foundation's Chief Executive admits £5 BILLION is needed if the entire country's grassroots inventory is to be brought up to standard, so clearly the work done so far, while admirable, has merely scratched the surface of a deep-rooted problem.

Some would argue that at a time when the sport of football has never been richer, the grassroots game deserves a lot more than it currently receives. Some top players are earning £120,000 a week after all. The Premier League is the richest in the world, but Dan Johnson, the Premier League's spokesman, is adamant that the amateur game is not officially their responsibility.

By giving £15million away each season to facilities, the League is, he insists already "the most redistributive in the world". It seems that the Foundation is going to have to make do with the £45million it currently receives each year.

I was fortunate enough to visit Holland when investigating this issue for Sky Sports News. It could just as easily have been France or Germany though of course.

It may be just a few miles away across the North Sea but in terms of facilities it's a whole different world from what we're used to experiencing in England.

My report for Sky Sports News focused on one club in the south of the country, OJC Rosmalen. It boasts over a hundred teams at all different age levels, and is blessed with wonderfully flat and well-maintained pitches, all with floodlights, and a fantastic clubhouse full of new equipment.

What's vital to stress here is that it's the norm throughout the Netherlands. Everywhere we went we saw villages and towns with wonderful sporting resources for both football and other sports too. There are over a thousand third-generation football pitches in Holland. In the whole of England, a much bigger country, you'd naturally expect more. We actually have just 183, according to Sport England.

The Dutch clubs we visited all enjoyed a tremendous community spirit enabling them to maximise fund-raising and sponsorship revenue, but the real secret of their success is their relationship with the local councils. Local authorities in Holland are legally obliged to maintain high-quality sports facilities - to them, sports provision is as important as housing, education and hospitals.

The subsidies OJC receive are linked to the number of young players they have as members. The more youth they develop, the more money they receive, and with thousands of youth members that amounts to some 40,000 euros a season, and that's not considered a lot by the OJC Chairman Wim Trugg.

Rational

Bert-Jan Heijmans used to play for OJC but now lives and coaches in England, running the Dutch-UK soccer school. He accompanied us to Holland and explained how councils see it as a rational and sensible policy to help football clubs with their facilities.

"Here at OJC, as with other clubs, there are veterans sides" he explained. "Pensioners aged 70 are playing in teams because the facilities are good. In England these men wouldn't be keeping fit - in fact they could be a burden on the state. Here in Holland they've worked out that it pays dividends in the end if you invest in sport."

Back in England I went to see the man who represents the whole of sport nationally, Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe. He recognises that politics has to play a role if this problem is to be resolved.

"Back in Bradford they're having to use the same pitches that I played on when I was a boy and being charged an arm and a leg for that" he lamented. "I want to reverse that and start paying teams to use them."

In Holland of course, they've been doing exactly that for years. Whether Sutcliffe is successful in his quest could well prove crucial. Councils stopped being legally obliged to maintain sports facilities back in the 80s, a consequence of lower taxation. Something had to give, and unfortunately sport was the victim as budget cutbacks were made.

Now, after decades of under-investment, our national sport has paid the price. The situation has improved in recent times through the Football Foundation but in reality, a revolution has to occur in the way sport is treated, if our facilities are ever to reach the standards I witnessed in Holland.