Campaigners need a masterplan to save sport, says Alastair Campbell

Published: 30th June, 2011
by TOM FOOT

ORGANISED sport must be put on a pedestal next to the NHS if it is to be spared from the government’s funding axe, according to Alastair Campbell.

The former New Labour communications chief told a meeting of the Camden Sports Council (CSC), also attended by parents, last Wednesday that they must think “strategically” about how to win back public cash.

Speaking at the Talacre Sports Centre in Kentish Town, Mr Campbell said: “It is the easiest thing in world to criticise the council for making cuts and privatisation and to campaign against that. 

“Going out there asking for more money is not the way to campaign. You have got to make a case strategically over time, so when the economy does pick up, when parts of public spending does need to be reinvested in again, they are not just thinking about big ticket items – like the NHS. They have got to be thinking sport is fundamental as well.”

Speaking at the CSC’s annual meeting, Mr Campbell criticised plans to give headteachers control of individual school budgets – New Labour academy school reforms that are now being accelerated by the Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Mr Campbell said: “It’s all very well for government to say, ‘let the headteachers decide’. But heads have got a lot of other things going on right now. They are in desperate need of proper co-ordination.”

Mr Campbell revealed he had been “upset” by the sacking of Camden sports development officer Mike Jackson who he said had been a “pivotal figure” for his children while they were at Gospel Oak and William Ellis schools.

He said: “When I met Fiona (Millar, his wife), well, I don’t know how she stayed with me, I was not a good person, certainly on the booze front. It was getting to that stage when I was starting to spread out in wrong directions. Mike was training my kids and they told me to get off my arse and come out for a run.”

Camden Council decided to sack Football League organiser and coach Will Cave, basketball supremo Juan Escobar and Mr Jackson, who organised athletics, triggering a parent campaign.

Parent Deborah Laing said: “This isn’t a minor thing, sport transforms people’s lives. Camden council should reverse that and CSC should be actively involved in confronting Camden with their failures.”

Football coach John McCulloch added: “Losing guys like Mike Jackson, it’s a travesty.”

CSC chairman John Mann said the CSC had grants for small start-up sports enterprises and would consider applications.