Waving the flag for connected communities

October 5, 2009 by
Filed under: The RSA, Uncategorized 

Yesterday I was linesman for my son’s under-17 football team. Today, I chaired a seminar on the RSA’s Connected Communities project. What’s the link?

One of the ideas behind Connected Communities is that regeneration strategies in deprived communities should start not by creating new state-sponsored capacity, but by understanding existing capacity and exploring how it could be enhanced. This is why we are spending the first few months of the project looking at the understanding of people in our research areas of existing organisational and interpersonal networks. One question is whether, if the community understood the existing pattern of networks better, would it be more able to make new connections and spot and address gaps? If people are already doing good things in their community, can they be encouraged and supported to extend their mandate?

Being linesman for an under 17s game is no fun. Many of the players and parents are fine but far too many are not. Being called a ‘f…g cheat’ by a sixteen year old boy who doesn’t like an offside decision is bad enough, but when the parents and coaches join in you really do wonder why you bother. Each Sunday now it feels like the whole match could kick off, with insults, fights and even death threats being bandied about (I’ve seen all three and the season is less than a month old). Yet this very volatility underlines what a lifeline organised football is for these kids. Without it where would the energy of fit, aggressive young men (many of whom clearly have huge issues with authority) be channelled?

As I stood yesterday weighing up whether to report the boy to the ref – which might provoke a riot – or put up with it, I wondered why more couldn’t be put into designing the context for the match. Three simple measures could make all the difference:

1. Players could be banned from making comments directly to officials, having instead to channel them through the team captain.

2. Parents could be banned from making any audible negative comment about any official or player (including their own team and their own child).

3. More radically, the two teams could be required to come into a mixed huddle before every match for a five minute conversation in which two or three players from each team are required to talk about what the game means to them and how committed they are to it being played in the right spirit.

It is really tough running a football team, particularly with challenging kids. With the pitch fees, the ref’s fee, the kits, hiring somewhere to practise, transport etc the costs rise all the time. It’s especially hard in the inner city where there is less space for pitches (I won’t be holding my breath for help from Boris Johnson’s invisible sporting participation plan!). And as the kids get older, as they get harder to organise and as their parents tend to opt out of responsibility, most teams seem close to folding, and many do. So, I admire all the adults who give their time to organise youngsters’ football. But just as the saying goes ‘if you want something done ask someone who’s already busy’ so I wish we could squeeze even more out of this commitment, building a culture around the game which meant young people learnt a bit of character alongside the ball skills.

Share

No related posts.

Tags: , ,

Comments

8 Comments on Waving the flag for connected communities

  1. mas on Mon, 5th Oct 2009 5:51 pm

    2. I heard a similar argument put forward by a fan with regard to the proposals to take action against abusive crowd chants – “that’s what I go for – it’s a way of letting off steam”, and only those that haven’t played sport very seriously would not understand (even if they don’t agree – and I don’t). Sport is a brilliant outlet for channelling aggression – it’s also known for the qualities of sportsmanship and sporting behaviour. It’s one of the few activities that allow people from different generations to come together and play together – sports provides the perfect opportunity for younger people to learn from those more experienced – not only in the skills of the sport, but in how to deal with those times when we behave inappropriately, how to handle failure as well as success, how to socialise beyond our normal peer group and so on.

    I worry that some of that is becoming lost, and above all I think the responsibility for that is with those playing at the highest level. Particularly in football the lack of respect from players towards officials is disgusting. The pathetic attempts at cheating by diving and the failure to use technology available to stamp it out causes young children in playgrounds across the country to dive in the most pointless of fashions in the most pointless of matches.

    Of course the good thing is the worries I have now have all been had before by previous generations – it’s critical though that local voluntary led sports are able to easily access the funding and the facilities they need. As activities for bringing communities together support for local sports should be right at the very top of the list – and not something just left to chance and hoped for goodwill.

  2. Julian Dobson on Mon, 5th Oct 2009 10:06 pm

    3. The ‘mixed huddle’ sounds a bit like a local strategic partnership. But however much LSPs announce their intentions to play their game in the right spirit, there’s still a sense that the talk is some way from the reality on the ground. If not, why the need for initiatives like Connected Communities?

    I won’t stretch the football analogy, but the tensions between the players in your youth football team and those with competing interests in creating communities have their similarities. The principles of community development still hold good: patience, respect, the space for people to self-identify rather than being labelled. It all takes time, whether it happens face-to-face or via new online networks. But given time and respect, huge changes can be (and have been) achieved.

  3. Allan Bosley on Tue, 6th Oct 2009 9:54 am

    4. The football analogy raises a particular aspect of the nature of community which I think you imply but haven’t stated. And that is a shared objective to the way the match is played, not just the result. Not just winning, but winning within the context of a match conducted to a set of agreed standards.

    Last night I attended a meeting designed to help resist what is seen by the community as the unnecessary imposition of traffic lights in a Conservation Area. Everyone has strong views about the subject and frequently everyone’s enthusiasm will lead to the overzealous support for a cause. The challenge is to create a shared willingness to harness that energy, by mutual agreement, so that the group can work together to achieve the desired result – ultimately to get a Highways Department to reconsider its thinking – without reverting to mindless abuse or fruitless campaigning.

    The same challenge faces the 6000+ town and parish councils and their respective councillors throughout the country on a monthly basis. Working together in as well considered way, challenging without fouling, trying to avoid the obvious dive.

    A part of that process is helped by a set of standing orders – in effect your team talk prior to the match – but captured as an integral part of the set up of the council.

    The real challenge is the fallible human dimension; to agree a shared approach, to working together allowing people to express a view and challenge opinion without upsetting the ref, or sending the crowd into chanting paroxysms of anger.

  4. Stuart Honeysett on Tue, 6th Oct 2009 10:01 am

    5. Hi Matthew

    I can completely relate to this. My game this weekend ended with two broken noses, two concussions and multiple injuries after a minor disagreement turned nasty.. Unfortunately we were without an official referee so the stand in had little presence or control over the game. Many of the official referees retire after being abused by players and supporters alike and you can’t really blame them.

    I do wish that the referees in football were treated more like referees in rugby where they demand total respect at all times. In 5 a side games they quite often use a sin bin rule so that the referees have a bit more flexbility about punishing challenges/behaviour.

  5. Ned Thistlethwaite on Tue, 6th Oct 2009 10:35 am

    6. Putting on my Islington Panthers basketball club hat (http://islingtonpanthers.co.uk/),
    i am involved with this both as a committee member (one of five) and occasionally helping out with coaching.

    Funding is clearly a perennial concern/issue that we have to deal with, particularly as we don’t charge young people to attend our sessions. Sports hall hire is the primary expense and if we didn’t have a partnership with a school (and therefore its facilities) we would be able to cater for far fewer young people than we are. An issue given that demand is always there.

    One of my big issues is why schools, both private and state, aren’t under more pressure to provide access to their facilities for their local communities. Especially for voluntary/community groups who can have such a huge impact for kids particularly out of school hours. It isn’t right to assume these groups can afford extortionate hiring rates targeted at corporate users.

    Finally, it is very important that older kids (such as Matthew’s under 17s) aren’t neglected. There is plenty to say here, but basically making this transition to adulthood is a crucial and neglected policy area with, in my opinion, far too little proactive support. Sport and in particular team sport at a local level can act as a vital support mechanism for many young people here and community involvement and support is crucial to this.

  6. Louise Thomas on Tue, 6th Oct 2009 11:45 am

    7. If you’re looking for examples of how the conduct of sport can provide an analogy, and a lesson, for how we might go about closing the social aspiration gap, then look no further than the refereeing rules of Ultimate Frisbee:

    “Gentlemanly behavior and gracefulness are held high. A foul was defined as contact “sufficient to arouse the ire of the player fouled.” No referees were present, which still holds true today: all ultimate matches (even at high level events) are self-officiated. At higher levels of play ‘observers’ are often present. Observers only make calls when appealed to by one of the teams, at which point the result is binding…

    At some levels of competition, it is still customary for teams to cheer their opponent at the end of the game. This tradition is an example of how the spirit of ultimate differs from most other sports, as these cheers are meant to be ridiculous, fun, and amusing. Cheers are songs or chants that teams make up and sing for each other at the end of a game.”

    Mutual respect, self reliance, collaboration, other regarding, engagement…frisbee anyone?

  7. mas on Tue, 6th Oct 2009 8:00 pm

    8. I’m up for frisbee – I’ll even bring my own :-)

  8. More Caveats than Conclusions? : Connected Communities on Wed, 7th Oct 2009 7:31 am

    9. [...] participation, Jeff Masters on the future of public services and Matt Grist on the Social Brain, Mathew Taylor chaired a wide-ranging discussion on community regeneration, which took place under Chatham House [...]

Tell me what you're thinking...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!