Scotland has had a love affair with sport dating back centuries, so why has the country allowed the actual act of taking part in sport to become lost to large swathes of the population?
There is now a clear distinction in Scotland between those who watch and those who do, and increasingly it is being drawn along lines of wealth, with sport becoming more popular among those who can afford the kit, memberships and travel to and from facilities, and less popular among those who cannot.
Scotland’s only research think tank on sport, the Observatory for Sport in Scotland (OSS), is therefore urging the next Scottish government to take on a simple but very big idea, of launching a first “national conversation on the role of sport in Scottish society”. This is not a discussion about when fans are allowed back into stadiums, policing measures around Old Firm matches or even how we improve Scotland’s sporting performance on the world stage.
This is bigger and has more significance for our nation than that. It is a discussion about you and me, about your children and grandchildren, about current and future generations, and how we improve our quality of life, strengthen our communities and start to peg back out-of-control health problems that led Scotland and the UK to suffer significantly during the pandemic.
OSS research has highlighted that for all the terrific work being done by the government, sportscotland, councils, trusts, sport and the business and third sectors, poverty and inequality is the main barrier to people taking part in sport in Scotland. Not technology or “lazy teenagers”, but opportunity.
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People are not “hard to reach”, services are, and with the shift of sport and recreation from streets and parks into facilities, barriers to simple play and activity have increased for many.
Ever-reducing funding has forced local sport and leisure provision into a commercial mindset, a race to the bottom and eventual collapse, but the pandemic has provided an opportunity to stop and re-think. There are many big ideas for how we can reverse the trend and, with new, strategic partnership funding and community engagement and management, create sustainable community activity for all ages and abilities. But it starts with a national conversation that everyone can join.
David Ferguson is chief executive of the Observatory for Sport in Scotland.