Hansard

I am very pleased to take part in the debate and I congratulate Tom McCabe on having his motion selected. I did not know about the debate until this morning, but I am delighted to participate, because I am particularly interested in sport for young people—as a parent, I am involved in it most weekends.

I did not know a great deal about the Hamilton International Sports Trust, but I made an effort to find out about it. Needless to say, all the details that I found have already been relayed to the Parliament by Tom McCabe. For that reason, I will not focus my remarks on the trust. However, the extent of the trust's involvement is admirable and highly impressive, given that it received only a small amount of seedcorn funding. The trust has succeeded in attracting and channelling funds, with the aim not just of involving people in sport but of encouraging sporting excellence. As Tom McCabe said, it is a tremendous template. We should promote that template and encourage other bodies to take on board what the trust has done. They should see what they can learn from it and follow its example.

In the time that is allotted to me, I would like to mention a similar organisation—Leith Athletic Football Club. Leith Athletic was set up in the mid-1990s, essentially by local parents in Leith, to encourage children to play football on Leith links and—as the parents put it—to get them off the streets. It was felt that not enough was being done for young people. Although they liked to kick a ball, nothing was being organised for them. Soccer sevens were organised, and teams were set up and entered in the local juvenile leagues. The idea was to play not so much to win as for the fun of the game and for the coaching, which enabled people to pass on skills and help others to learn, and which took children away from the boredom of standing on street corners.

The club started to grow. It is now not just one of the biggest in Edinburgh, but in recent years the most successful. Last year Leith Athletic won the Scottish cup for under-12s. Its under-13 team, which the previous year had won the same trophy, took part in the tournament for its age group, where it lost to a team from Fife. The club now attracts players not just from Leith, but from Portobello and other neighbouring areas of Edinburgh. Leith Athletic has also established a successful girls football team. The club recognised that football is not just for boys and that there is a wider audience for it—many girls want to become involved.

However, Leith Athletic has to put up with fairly poor facilities. I have accompanied the club to tournaments in other countries, where the facilities were considerably better. Leith Athletic is not sitting back—it wants to improve its facilities and to work with other organisations such as sportscotland and the local authority. For some time, Leith Athletic has been waiting to develop the local tennis courts.

Just this week, we found that the local authority, which is planning to plant some trees on Leith links, had decided to plant one on the goal line, next to the corner flag, thereby obstructing play. The tree had to be relocated. The relationship with clubs and organising bodies is not good enough and more work has to be done on that. We have to take the template that Tom McCabe outlined, make it work throughout Scotland, learn from clubs such as Leith Athletic and show that with the voluntary spirit, in partnership with the authorities, we can raise funds and improve excellence.