UNCOMPETITIVE LABOUR

Nicholas Farrell says that, instead of blaming a lack of state spending, Mr Blair should look nearer home to explain our Olympic showing

TONY BLAIR'S reaction to Britain's soli- tary gold medal at the Olympic Games was: 'We've got to decide as a country to treat this as a major national priority. An urgent review .. . is a national investment.' Like that of many people, especially British ath- letes and the organisers of British athletics, Mr Blair's solution to British Olympic fail- ure is money. It is difficult to see what money has got to do with injuries (Sally Gunnell collapsing on the track), false starts (Linford Christie) and strange insect bites (Liz McColgan).

There is little Mr Blair or anyone else can do about bad luck. But what Mr Blair and most of the rest of them can do some- thing about is what he and they have so far failed to mention: the severe erosion of competitive sport, indeed of nearly all sport, in Britain's Labour-run schools.

In the recent soul-searching, we have heard very little about what Labour councils and their supporters got up to in the nation- al educational establishment regarding com- petitive sport in schools in the 1970s and 1980s — the years that produced this year's crop of Olympic failures. They were hostile to it and often advised schools not to offer it. Perhaps, as all too often, the Tories have thrown in the towel on this one too. For in education, like Peter the Great, they have pulled uphill with the strength of ten men. But millions have pulled downhill.

Consider Islington, controlled for years now by Labour, where Mr Blair lives and where he famously didn't sent his son to school. Islington's 72 schools do not have a single grass football pitch or athletics track between them, and only one proper com- petition standard swimming-pool for the borough's 23,000 school pupils. The near- est athletics track (in poor condition) and football pitch are both in Haringey.

Among the best of the bad bunch which make up Islington's primary schools is Clerkenwell Parochial School. This sum- mer, Ofsted, the national schools inspec- torate, passed the school as 'excellent' for sport in swimming. But what does this excellence amount to? The answer is, chil- dren receive half an hour's swimming teaching each week. Apart from a bit of PE that is about all the sport, they do. So in the London borough of Islington the quick dip is the closest thing to organised competi- tive sport for primary school pupils.

In the annual London Primary Schools Swimming Gala in June, of about 25 schools competing just five were from the state sec- tor. The five included Clerkenwell Parochial. It was the only state school to reach the final in anything: the girls' free-style relay. The girls came, said a teacher, 'fifth or sixth'. He regarded this as a real achievement. The very words 'swimming gala' are symptomatic of the whole sorry show. The council, natu- rally, does not have a director of sport. Sport is the turf of the Director of Leisure.

So, who is behind the current state of affairs? Until abolished by the Govern- ment in 1990, the Inner London Education Authority (Ilea) ran education in London — and so in Islington. It was the educa- tional arm of the Greater London Council, itself previously abolished after Mr Ken Livingstone's colourful but ludicrous stint in charge. Mr Livingstone's only known sport is keeping newts. In 1986, Ilea finally came out of the closet and 'advised' its schools — it always strenuously denied that this meant a ban — to drop competi- tive sport. In 1985, three Ilea primary schools had banned competitive sport alto- gether. The headmaster of one south Lon- don comprehensive school explained that he had banned cricket because to have a First XI meant concentrating on an elite.

Typical of the prevailing attitude in Ilea circles was the view of a body called the National Coaching Foundation and Play Board, which asked teachers and coaches to cut out words like 'winners' and 'losers' in favour of alternatives such as 'free expression' and 'self-worth'. The policy of opposing winners because that meant losers was not confined to London Labour-run schools. Schools from as far afield as Bristol and Sussex even banned the egg-and-spoon race.

As late as 1989 — even after the Labour Party's national leadership had been forced to state in public that it was not against competitive sport — the diehards still stuck to their guns. A subsequent sur- vey that year by the Times, of the 60 Labour-controlled education authorities, for example, found that Sheffield still adhered to a policy of opposing competi- tive sports in primary schools. A Sheffield City Council spokeswoman was unable to say if the same policy still applied today.

Hand in glove with all this went the selling off by education authorities of thousands of school playing-fields, often to property developers. Labour said education authori- ties were forced to sell off the land because they had been starved of funds by the Gov- ernment. It also said that teachers had no time for sport any more because of the increased workload due to the government- imposed National Curriculum.

On the sell-off, Labour may have a point. But prior to it anyone with eyes could see the sorry unused state of these school play- ing-fields. If Labour-controlled authorities had believed in promoting competitive sport, instead of undermining it at every turn, they would have found a way of keep- ing the playing-fields. And the Government has been weak. The National Curriculum does require that children do sport, but does not specify how much. But even under the revised National Curriculum, which came into force last August, pupils are not required to play the full version of recog- nised competitive games until the age of 14.

Labour councils may have abandoned the old policy of actively opposing compet- itive sport, but they would appear to be doing little to encourage it. For, as can be seen by the example of Islington, it does not really exist.

My own school was King's Canterbury, an ancient public school, and I was in the First XI for two years. I replaced David Gower opening the batting for the school. We were both left-handers. That is where the similarity between us ended. In my day, the mid-1970s, we were in the nets or on the pitch every single day of the sum- mer term, bar one — corps day — for at least two hours.

Cricket occupied most of the afternoon; then, after that, there were more lessons and prep. But I loved it. We had a great team and I seem to recall we were unbeaten in my last season. We were encouraged to be good, we had the facilities to be good, and we worked very hard to be good. Even boys who could not make it to the Fourth XI had to play some sport each day.

Those that run Britain's state schools often say that work must take preference over sport. But I also passed five A levels, and I believe that sport helped the work.

When I told Islington's charming deputy director of education, Mr Mike Clayden, himself once vice-captain of the Haberdash- er Askes College First XV, that I played cricket each afternoon at school, he burst out laughing. 'Come off it,' he said, `no one does sport every day — not even at public schools. Most schools, including public schools, do one afternoon a week. Were you a boarder?' The local professional football team in Islington is Arsenal. Once, more than half the team was made up of Islington men. Now? 'I don't think we've got any at the moment,' said Mr Clayden.

Mr Clayden described the borough's school swimming programme as 'strong', and insisted that the borough's policy was not and never had been anti-competitive sport. He had been around, he said, for 25 years. Advice not to play team sports, they all say, is not a ban. The problem was, he explained, lack of money.

In 1986, Bobby Robson, the former Eng- land football manager, wrote an attack in the Daily Mail on Ilea's anti-sport policy. He concluded: 'There can't be many lead- ing sportsmen who did not begin at school. Destroy the seed and there is no harvest.'

Money is not the root of the problem. Ethiopia, with a per capita gross domestic product of $0.42 (adjusted to take account of varying price levels in different countries) compared to our $17.23 and America's $24.68, got two gold medals in Atlanta. Cuba with a per capita GDP of $3 got seven.

'If Tony Blair wants to find out what's wrong with British sport, he should come and take a look at what's going on under his own nose in Islington,' said one Isling- ton teacher of 25 years' standing. 'It's not a question of money. It's a question of priori- ties. But then our kids can't even read and write — we came bottom nationally — let alone win Olympic medals.' The teacher cannot be quoted by name because to express an opinion critical of his employer would mean disciplinary procedure.

If Waterloo was won on the playing- fields of Eton, Atlanta was lost in places like Islington because there is nothing to play and nowhere to play it. Mr Blair and the Labour councils have short memories.