We're Miles Wide Of The Denmark

Aug 31 2008 Gordon Waddell

DENMARK last week. A little suburb on the outskirts of Copenhagen called Nordsjaelland. Population 18,000.

Step off the bus at Farum Park for the Queen of the South game. Open your eyes.

And realise just how far in the dark ages we still are when it comes to sport.

The stadium is picture postcard. Fully enclosed, corners filled in, 10,000 seats, pitch like a bowling green, little terracing behind the goals for their "Wild Tigers" - presumably the Danish version of an Ultra is someone who's marginally less polite than everyone else.

Outside? Four training pitches, one full astro-turf. An Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Floodlit tennis courts. A huge squash club. Basketball courts.

The biggest gym in the city.

Accommodation for 80, a restaurant and conference rooms. The focal point of their community.

And all over Scandinavia, all over western Europe in fact, you'll find plenty like it.

Where are Scotland's?

Sure, I hear the arguments - where were the Scandinavians in the Olympic medal tables?

We've just seen a week of back-slapping and street parades to hail Chris Hoy (below) and our returning medal heroes.

My hat is well and truly doffed to them.

But the stampede of people rushing to take credit for the "system" that produced them? Do me a favour.

Anyone who succeeds in sport in Scotland at that level is still doing it DESPITE the system, not because of it.

They may have the people to help them now, the expertise and desire of bodies like sportscotland are growing all the time and lottery funding has made a huge difference.

But our facilities compared to even one tiny enclave in one city in one country are jurassic.

And there are no excuses. It's time the government got off their backsides and started helping Scotland get off theirs.

If a community of 18,000 in Denmark can have an Olympic standard pool why do we only have ONE in the whole of Scotland?

Purely personal example - back when I was a kid, table tennis was my life and our club in Falkirk fought like dogs with the council for years for us to become the first in the country to have a full-time facility.

They gave us nothing and we ended up scattered to the four winds, still trying to make our way at national and international level.

Yet you travel to Sweden and every single village and town has a facility on tap 24/7, nearly all community funded.

Fine, it's not our national sport. But football is.

And we're doing hee-haw in a hurry about that either.

Back in 2004 as part of our Youth Action Plan we announced fortunes were being spent on indoor facilities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Falkirk.

That's the roof only gone on the first one now, just opposite Hampden - four years after they'd announced it. And not a brick laid anywhere else.

Cycling is another example.

We're taking great pride naming the velodrome being built in Glasgow for the 2014 Commonwealth Games after Hoy - yet stabbing him in the back by shutting down the one he learned his trade on at Meadowbank.

What kind of an immoral trade-off is that?

This country is more than capable of generating the talent to live at any level of sport. Ally that to our desire to succeed and it's sporting dynamite.

And we HAVE created champions. Jock Stein could build a team to take on the best in Europe, Alex Ferguson (right) could do it at Aberdeen, Allan Wells could become the world's fastest man.

All achieved on pure raw ability.

But ask yourself this - if we have the talent to do that without the facilities of a Denmark, Sweden or Germany, just think what we could do if we did have them?

Go and look at what they've done in Kilwinning for a success story, a community sports club grown out of nothing, but only thanks to the driving force of four individuals determined to make it work.

If they'd waited for the local council to start it they would still be playing football on a swamp.

But you pick up the papers last week and find the government are considering shelling out £50million of OUR money to prop up the purchase of a couple of Old Masters for the National Gallery because the Duke of Sutherland is cashing in his chips and they're not available on loan any more?

I'm not uncouth, I'm not lacking in culture, but I'd love to see them stick that one out to a vote of the people and see where they'd rather the money was invested.

And if they choose to bail out the gallery instead of spending some dough on the potential health and well-being of something that could truly benefit communities?

Turn the lights out when you close the door, eh?