What happened to Youth sport?
By TMX Archives on 20th Jan 10
This week JD tells us how impressed he is with young Jack Brunell and rabbits-on about a Youth scramble in the year DOT
I'LL start this week by asking you to humour me while I indulge in a spot of looking-back – don't all rush away, there is a reason for this as will be revealed soon enough.
Not too long ago, depending how old you are, (all right, it was 1969) the very first schoolboy scramble (as they were then called) staged in the north of England was run by the Westmorland club at what was a superb venue at Helsington, just outside Kendal. I was reminded of this just the other week when talking to Mike Myers, one of the participants in that ground-breaking event. Mike remembered the day well and the battle he had on track with his pal Derek Lowden. Mike was mounted on an old BSA Dandy, which I think was a 70cc four-stroke while Derek's steed a pedal-assisted moped. Who knows what make it was! The bit that Mike remembered most was at the height of the dust-up Derek's moped cooked a plug and he dropped it on the track and ran into the crowd yelling for a plug spanner!
Of course we all laughed at the naievity of this. But what fun it was and everyone was in the same boat, lads having a great time on whatever old bike they, or their dads, could get their hands on. The early years of schoolboy scrambling were all like this with what were basically scrap bikes. It was all about make-do and mend – and lads having a bit of competitive fun.
OK, hit the Fast Forward button: Last week in T+MX we ran what I personally thought was a cracking feature in the form of an interview with rising young British MX star Jack Brunell. Now, there's certainly no shortage of rising young British riders but what is different about Jack is that, while living and working in Britain he has completed most of his riding apprenticeship in Europe, mainly Gerrmany.
In a refreshingly frank interview with our International MX correspondent Alex Hodgkinson, Jack has openly answered all the questions that one would normally expect a rider to side-step or swerve around and I have actually re-read his story several times in the past week.
The reason I keep re-reading is that Jack was openly critical of the attitude he encountered while racing in Britain and went to some length to point-out how much more friendly and pleasurable it is racing in Europe.
I quote: "...It's a completely different atmosphere to that in England. Everyone's happy to see you and have a chat. They just want to race you, not take you out. There are quite a lot of idiots who want to take you out all the time. It's like that all the way through in England. A lot of it starts with the parents and gets passed down to the kids. There's just so much bitchiness about who's spent more money on this and that.
"Over in Europe, if you beat someone he'll shake your hand and congratulate you. You don't get anything like that in England, just the ‘He's obviously cheating,' accusations and all that.”
Strong words indeed from the 20-year-old who has taken a refreshingly different route while persuing his sport and whether or not you agree with them – and I'm sure there are plenty who don't – I do know that there are others who share Jack's view. They have told me – and it is something that maybe our sport's promoters just might like to think about. I'm not suggesting for a minute that the organisers and promoters of Youth sport in this country are party to what could be termed an aggressive culture in Youth sport but maybe there's time to reflect on the direction the sport has taken.
As is obvious to all that the accent has switched from innocent fun to what is now termed ‘totally professional' – whatever that means. Materially, it appears to mean a monster race-home, a couple of £10,000 bikes and a budget to rival NASA. I'm not saying there isn't a need for this level of competition, there clearly is – but surely there's an equal need for providing inexpensive fun for kids – of any age – on bikes. Surely a 15-year-old shouldn't have to start on a brand-new 250F...?
Just out of interest, I was actually present on the day of that first schoolboy race at Helsington although not as a competitor, just as a keen teenage spectator. As fate has it I now live just half a mile from the venue and look over the wall at the track every single day as I travel to work. The land-owners long ago decreed: ‘No motor sport to be allowed', which was a crying shame as it was an excellent track – and still could be. It is currently used for horse eventing. The wrong sort of horse-power for us...