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7/3/11
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Sport and fitness for today’s youth
March/April 2011 £2.75
Achieving the impossible with games By Louise Cordell A HEAD TEACHER tasked with organising one of the nine School Games pilots has spoken out about his attempts to ‘achieve the impossible’. Billy Downie is head of the Streetly School in Sutton Coldfield and chair of the Local Organising Committee for the Black Country School Games pilot. He has been working with county sports partnerships, state and independent schools NGBs, disability sport organisations and young people to pull together a one day event set to take place this summer. He said: “To be honest, our first feeling about the new initiative was anger. “We were nine of the country’s most passionate head teachers sat in a meeting, but our first conversation was ‘look at what they are doing to us’, “But we had to get over it and we had to utilise that passion to deliver something worthwhile instead – a level three competition, on time and on a budget of £45,000. It felt like we had to achieve the impossible.” However, on 8 July his event will take place, featuring eight Olympic and five Paralympic sports, across six venues,
covering four local authorities and involving over 1,320 young athletes. It is hoped that this day, along with the other pilots, will give organisers a chance to test the School Games formula. Billy, who was speaking at the YST Sports Colleges conference, added: “It hasn’t been easy, but this will be as great as we want to make it – to move forward now we need passion, advocacy and leadership. We owe it to our young people to offer them opportunities and to inspire as many of them as possible and the School Games will give us the opportunity to do that. “The ins and outs of it will be tough, but I am now sure it will engage many more young people than we already do a brilliant job with. I am very excited about our event in July and about engaging young people for life.” Schools around the UK will soon be able to register their own interest in becoming involved in the School Games and, until then, they are being advised to start establishing their own Local Organising Committee and planning the logistics of their own event progression.
John Farnworth
World champ John helps launch sports game WORLD Football Freestyle champion John Farnworth appeared to help launch a new hybrid sports game designed to get young people active and promote community cohesion. The Street Snooker event attracted over 300 young people, who were entertained by John’s freestyle tricks before trying out the football/snooker hybrid game for themselves. Guinness World Record holder
John said: “I wish there had been a game like this around when I was developing my skills. “It’s great to see young boys and girls enjoying the game. “It’s rare that such an inclusive and exciting game is made available to the wider community and I think Welwyn council have been pioneers in hosting one of the first Street Snooker games.” See Page 6 for more information