That may not mean a great deal to your average sports enthusiast at the present time but let me tell you, I believe the effects of Leeds Met's success will have massive sporting repercussions for the region – particularly once the benefits start filtering through the local system.

Having been involved in coaching for a long time it still amazes me how draconian and medieval some of our junior sports coaches are at amateur clubs.

Don't get me wrong, any coach is better than no coach at all and I admire and appreciate their voluntary efforts in providing sport to our youth.

However, the more local coaches are educated, the less we will see 12-year-olds kids who still don't know the fundamental basic skills of their sport wasting valuable time aimlessly running round pitches in a bid to get fit.

The real focus or mission statement for Leeds Carnegie is to establish the UK, as part of the legacy of the 2012 Olympics, as the leading coaching system in the world by the 2016 Olympics.

That's a big goal but I think highly obtainable if we can educate our coaches across a broad range of sports with a mindset and philosophy of sporting excellence and success – success being nothing less than winning.

After listening to Brendan Foster at the press announcement I believe he provided a two-fold answer to an important question I was asked this week: Is our nation's tendency to underachieve due to us trying to compete in too many competitive sports as opposed to specialising at what we are good at?

You can't help watch Wimbledon for example without wondering how much energy Serbia put into tennis given that is one of a few sports they seem to excel at.

I believe two defining factors to which he referred – education towards specialising and mindset towards underachievement when addressed will create a stronger sporting nation.

He spoke about our country's conservative attitude towards winning, which compared to others lacked the drive and attitude toward winning needed to consistently compete for top spot in athletic performance.

In taking the word "conservative" quite literally he spoke about a British government of the Margaret Thatcher days who would never have supported sport politically, in the same way our current Minister of Sport Gerry Sutcliffe has shown in his role in Leeds Met Carnegie's success.

The Australian Institute of Sport has been a world leader in elite sports performance with a successful model for superior sports development.

Their sustained success in world sport, particularly the Olympics, prove these systems work and work well.

It was commented that their motto towards Olympic success was "going for gold" where as ours – up until the end of last year – was "sport for all". I say until last year because in November 2007 Culture Secretary James Purnell decided to push the target of making two million people take up physical activity by 2012 further down the list of priorities and bring the development of elite athletes to the forefront with a £100m injection into sport's elite governing bodies.

If implemented with a Russian-type authority through our coaching system at all levels and in all sports, I think this reform and change in attitude could help our nation into future sporting dominance.
The best thing is it has been brought right to our doorstep in Leeds, beating off sporting giants like Loughborough University to become the pioneering coaching centre of excellence.

In doing so it is my hope and anticipation that some of our local sporting institutes will be among the first to reap the benefits in producing some of our stars of the future.


AFTER Russia gave my beloved Holland a good kicking in the nether regions my Euro 2008 prediction for the success of Marco van Basten's side now look double Dutch.

With two teams who are only partially in Europe geographically, making it to the semis of an entertaining tournament, I have to ask whether the Euros were more interesting without England being there as a distraction? Probably not if you're the landlord of the local pub or a distributor of England merchandise but for the average fan or business owner down on employee sick notes, the competition has been refreshing.

The unbiased view of each game has allowed enthusiasts the opportunity to appreciate the skill levels of other nations and learn philosophies of how football should be played.

The unfortunate aspect being that the European shop window creates yet another opportunity for Premier League clubs to look at foreign players and with the intent of moving them to our domestic competition – barring Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo, pictured left, of course.
Seems we never learn.