What's the Future for Summer Term Sports?
It's just after midway through the summer term. The weather has been no better or worse than normal. And the traditional programme of activities has meant that cricket, tennis, athletics and rounders have squeezed themselves into a few short weeks, carefully evading and reluctantly accommodating various forms of public examinations in IB, AS and GCSE.
Fewer boys than ever play cricket regularly in schools. In a sector which always enjoyed attaching adjectives from the world of music, Cricket has always been a Major sport. Now though, it is infrequently a majority sport: does that mean a transition to the status of Minor? Many of those boys who still play school cricket do so at a standard higher than ever, with year round one on one coaching, ever improving technology and professional coaching. But those who are not excellent drift away, creating a situation where few schools have more than 20-30 keen cricketers in Years 11,12 and 13 combined. Often it is fewer.
The trend to shorten games has conflicting impacts. It is in line with fashions for abbreviated, high impact competition. However, unless carefully managed, it reinforces the issue that school cricket always wrestles with - that of meritocracy and democracy. If the best players do all the batting and all the bowling, the others soon lose interest. If the opportunities are shared around more equally, the chances of winning reduce - unless both teams collaborate to the greater good of the game.
Other summer activities have made efforts to re-package themselves to become shorter, to fit around trends and exams. Multi-event Athletics, 25 ball Rounders matches and faster Tennis competitions. But every year the difficulties compound, to the stage where simply discharging traditional summer term competitive obligations becomes a relief.
Then there is Rounders. Recently suffering the indignity of being stripped of GCSE practical status, it has been a default girls' activity for many years - its popularity not unconnected with its reduced physical demand and increased social opportunity. Other girls' activities have significant barriers to entry: Athletics in the physical demand that track events require and Tennis in the high levels of technical competence required to make the game function. In many schools the same, able girls dominate all three, and the same staff run from a practice in one to a match in another with a schedule that is beyond hectic.
These problems are not going away any time soon. So, where are the answers? Some may lie within the traditional programme of activities, and others may lie beyond.
New forms of participation and competition in Cricket, Athletics, Tennis and Rounders will be essential to guarantee their future. Shorter, more intensive forms of the game, maybe less frequently and involving reduced travelling might help. Instead of a match or competition every week, maybe a several school event every two weeks might be better. Competitions with greater variety of format might stimulate interest. The same match format every week may continue to work for the most able players at a performance level, but at engagement and participation levels, something different may be necessary.
A more creative approach to competition is urgently required. The days of an Under 15 C Cricket team travelling an hour and a half on a Saturday for a 25 over one off friendly game, are numbered.
But maybe the answer is not just doing the same activities differently, but by adopting new activities. Especially those that are more in line with recreational trends - shorter, more physically intensive and not based entirely around competition against other schools. Much of the summer term programme takes place in April and May, when cool and damp conditions are not unknown. A programme incorporating activities that are active and can be conducted in these conditions may have practical advantages. Girls' Soccer, Lacrosse, Touch Rugby: this type of activity may have greater mass appeal than queuing in shorts and t shirt on a cool, Spring day to attempt a one metre high jump.
The world of school sport is changing. Evidence is widespread that a unbroken diet of traditional activities, in a format little changed from a previous era, no longer commands mass appeal.
Conservatism is the principal force which stands in the way of significant change