A VIEW FROM THE SIDELINE (DECEMBER 6TH)

Why should the Kids have all the fun?
When I sit down and think about the purpose of a sports club you start to come up lots of examples of the positives of what a sports club like Timperley brings to the table.

I am a rather pathetically competitive person so I see winning as one of the driving forces of sport. That is the purpose of the whole exercise and winning is great fun but the spin offs are probably of more importance. For every winner there are losers. Every Saturday for each winner there is a loser; every year there is only one winner of the cup. So one thing sport teaches you is how to cope with the disappointment of defeat.

Sport, particularly team sports, teach you how to deal with people, both team mates and opponents. You make friends but also learn to get on with people you are not obviously friendly towards. Sport helps you deal with life and its challenge. A friend of mine rose the very highest level in HR at a large multi-national company. At college he was an active sportsman and he said that in any recruitment interview one of the first questions asked was “What sport do you play?”

On top of that sport keeps you fit and stops you getting fat! Or is supposed to. If you turn up at TSC on a Wednesday you see few if any obese players. I suppose you could have an argument as to whether playing sport stops you getting fat or whether fat people do not play sport. I am certainly living evidence that you put on weight in spades when you stop playing sport.

Another aspect of a sports club like Timperley is that they are very often family affairs. The sport for young people has to have volunteers to organise and coach. Very often these are parents. At the very least parents are the supporters who encourage the players. Often through sport families make friends.

I found it great to see on Facebook coverage of a night out for U16 and U19 parents organised by Emma Lee. It is what a community club is about.

Thanks Emma.

Is Theresa May just unaware, incompetent or truly evil.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Brexit process is chaos and that Theresa May will make the title of the “worst ever British Prime Minister” all her own.

However, her premiership would be catastrophic without the Brexit situation.

We have an NHS - one of the world’s great institutions, which is being destroyed and dismantled by the Government. Our schools are in underfunded chaos. Our legal and penal systems are fast becoming a chaotic mess with the reduction in legal aid and removal of access to justice for all. We have large reductions in our emergency services and have spent a fortune on building aircraft carriers but cannot afford the planes to fly off them. We have a massive and seemingly insoluble housing crisis which seems to be being blamed on immigration which seems to be blamed by some for all our problems. Quite ludicrous.

However, I am particularly concerned at the treatment Manchester has received and is receiving from central government.

The most significant event in 2017 in my life was the attack on the Manchester Arena. The response from the emergency services and from the city council and Greater Manchester Authority was very positive. The days after the attack were very emotional if you lived in Manchester. It was a coming together of a community to demonstrate its resilience in the face of disaster. The vigil in Albert Sq on the day after the attack was attended by local and national politicians though rather pointedly not Theresa May who made a fleeting visit to Manchester before scuttling back to the capital.

Being in Manchester at that time the police presence was obvious but also was the contribution made by police forces from different parts of the country. Clearly there would be a bill to be paid. Very early on the government made a commitment of £19m to assist with dealing with the repercussions from the event. However, only this week however this commitment had been down scaled to £12m and even that is subject to scrutiny from Whitehall. At the same time the cost to various local authorities and other organisations has risen to over £26m.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack the Chief Constable of GMP stated that the large scale cuts to police budgets had reduced the effectiveness of his force to create links with the community and to cope with terrorist threats.

There is clearly an argument that the cuts in police budgets were a contributory factor to the Arena tragedy.

Whilst I am writing this the Anderson report was released into the terrorist attacks in 2017 which came to the conclusion that the attack on the arena could possibly have been prevented if the security forces had followed up the information they had been given.

The recent growth of Manchester has been to no little degree due to the concept of the Northern Powerhouse. The improvement in infrastructure was central to the Powerhouse concept and was geared to improve the interconnectivity between the great Northern cities of Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. However, a London centric government sees the concentration of resources into the South East as the priority with Cross Rail 2 and the ultimate vanity project-HS2. Back at University in 1966 we were writing essays which pointed out that the motorway network envisaged would not deliver the growth claimed for the regions but only increase the prosperity of London and the South East. Similarly an HS2 which extends from London reaching places like Manchester and Leeds many years down the line will again mainly benefit the South East.

Work has just been completed on the Ordsall Chord rail link which will enable trains to run across Manchester linking the major stations. However, the money has not been provided to expand the stations to take advantage of this increased capacity. Joined together government thinking.

Basically, it is difficult to see the North of England and in particular Manchester as any sort of priority for the Theresa May government. The priority is the South East and even more importantly the survival of the Tory government.

Dates for your Diary
U19 League Play –off
The U19 comes to a real climax on Sunday (10th December) when Timperley face up to Poynton in a game where the winner will end up as League Champions.

The game will face off at 6.15pm at Timperley.

It would be great to have as many people possible down at Timperley to support our team.

Xmas Cracker Lacrosse at Timperley
JNGL Christmas 8s Tournament
Date: Sunday 17th December 2017
Time: 09:00 - 12:45 U11s + U15s
12:30 - 16:30 U13s + U18s

This will be the second time that Timperley have organised this on behalf of JNGL. This year we have added the U11s and U18s age groups to the U13s and U15s. So all 4 age groups will have a Christmas tournament to finish the year.

Unlike last year where each team played till the end to determine from the first to the last position, this year after the group games we will have semi finals and finals only for the U11s, U13s and U15s. With the U18s we will have one group and at the end top two will play a final and the 3rd and 4th placed teams will contest for bronze.

In total, there will be 28 teams participating. 6x for U11s, 7x for U13s, 9x for U15s and 6x for U18s.

I hope to do a cake stand as well to generate some cash for the US Tour funds.

The Winter Classic
A reminder that the Winter Classic will take place on the weekends of 9th and 10th December and 16th and 17th December.

The games will feature 4 teams made up of the best players in England and will be an important part of the selection process for the 2018 Men’s World Championships.

It is presumed that the venue will be the MMU Platt Lane complex.

Last word on Brexit. How others see us.
Brexit is “the biggest political nonsense since the Roman Emperor Caligula made his favourite horse a senator.”

Peter Kapern . Deutschlandfunk commentator

*Deutschlandfunk is a German radio Station

Updated 07:10 - 1 Sep 2019 by Tom Slater