Meeting of the Parliament 12 June 2014
I am talking about the many positive differences that the community’s access to that funding is making. That facility was not available to that football club in the past, so I think that I will stick to the positive nature of that.
Only last week, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice announced that one of six successful applicants was Castlehead high school—in Paisley, in Renfrewshire. That funding will build on funding that it got previously to create an SFA school of football excellence, which is also a great scheme. We have managed to get many young people involved in that, participating as referees and players and having healthy lifestyles. Those are all examples of the scheme working. Hopefully, the young men and women who are playing football in Castlehead high school can follow in the footsteps of another well-known Paisley buddie, Archie Gemmill, and score wonder goals in the world cup. Such schemes are all going to help.
I will make a suggestion—we could call it a pitch—to the cabinet secretary. St Mirren’s street stuff project has been mentioned by me and other members on numerous occasions. People from St Mirren go out and work in the community and are able to access areas that local authority services and third sector groups cannot access, because they have the credibility that comes from representing the football club. The cabinet secretary is aware of a lot of the work that the club has done in the community, because he has recently visited St Mirren. It goes out into the community and gets involved in street football and it has a gym bus. It also has a mobile venue called the box, which lets people get involved with dancing and DJ-ing—I am getting a bit old for some of that, although I might try football from time to time.
The club also runs other projects. It works with a lot of community groups, because it is based in Paisley’s Ferguslie Park, which is an area of multiple deprivation. It has helped young fathers who have not been able to cook a meal—the kids go out to play football and, when they come back, dad is in the corporate hospitality area and has made a meal for them. We could maybe take that idea forward. The cabinet secretary recently visited the Dome, which St Mirren financed itself. That shows that it is possible to retrofit what is almost an indoor facility very cheaply.
Here is the pitch, Presiding Officer. Why do we not take that idea and create a football club-based community hub, which would have credibility in the community? I have mentioned previously that the chairman of St Mirren, Stewart Gilmour, has said to the local authority, “Why do you not second some of your social workers to me? I will use them to make a difference in the community.” It is about credibility, becoming part of the community and using the community hub to make a difference to an area. I am sick of hearing that areas such as Ferguslie Park in Paisley are regarded as areas of multiple deprivation. We can use the local football club as an example.
The project would involve multiple sports. Kelburne Hockey Club—which, incidentally, has worked with Duncan McInnes, who is the brother of the Aberdeen manager and is involved in hockey—is one of the best clubs in Scotland. It has got to the stage at which it wants to be part of this and to have a water-based hockey pitch.
Why can we not use sport as a way not only to take kids off the street to ensure that they avoid antisocial behaviour on Friday nights but to push them so that they get the idea of accessing education, jobs and other things? I am not asking for cashback for communities to pay for all that, although if anybody wanted to do that, it would be fine by me. A basket of measures is required.