The Lambs travel to Everton

As I write this there are around 20 minutes left before Tamworth Fc take on Everton in the 3rd round of the FA cup 2012. Tamworth are currently the we one lowest ranked team I. The competition but so what today they carry with them the hopes and dreams of about 5000 traveling supporters and a whole town behind them.

This is a fantastic event and for me it's what sport is about. The best way to get young people involved in sport is through competition and aspiration. Today Tamworth Fc will be playing against a premiership team, the dream of every school boy who plays the game and proving that this is in reach if young players want it and work hard enough.

I don't know what the result will be but I do know that when I travelled down to Wembly for the FA vase final in 1989 I felt a sense of belonging to and pride in the town we live. Tamworth Fc are putting Tamworth on the map raising the profile of the town, of football and of sport for everyone, their doing a fantastic job. I hope supporters continue to follow he club after the FA cup competition concludes regardless of how far we get.

So two final points 5000ish following the lambs today, the first FA cup game this seasion attracted only 1000 to the lamb,

Good luck lads I hope you pull of a nice shock for the north west

Rawlett Sports Celebration Evening

Had a wonderful evening at the Coton Centre last night attending the Rawlett Community Sports College Sports Celebration Evening. As I type this I am trying to think of anything missing form the evening, I know that sounds negative but the evening had the lot, an aspirational guest speaker -Craig Heap, a celebration of sporting success for the schools teams, awards and accredited qualifications for sporting work, celebration of individual's achievements in and out of school, dance/martial arts/gymnastic displays and even teachers being put on the spot. So it had everything i could have possibly wanted in the evening.

There were a fanastic amount of certificates given out to a variety of sports people and these included accredited Sports Leader Level 1 awards. These are not just about being good at a particular sport but are also about organisation skills coaching etc etc and not only take good performance on the pitch into account but also require a significant amount of classroom based work to achieve. As I sat and watched these being handed out i thought about the life skills that will be falling out of these achievements and that will stay with these young people for the rest of their lives. One phrase that was heard a few time was "sport changes lives" even one small steop at a time I feel it can and these awards can clearly be linked to that phrase.

Throughout the evening there was a sense of enthusiasm and achievement not only from the young people but also the staff and rightly so. The sports leader level 1 awards given out last night menas Rawletts have double the national average for a school, what a fantastic position.

There were 3 displays last night including karate gymnastics and boys dance. The great thing for me is that through the schools celebration of sports and performance arts a group of boys were able to perform without the stygma that I remember boys being subjected to when I was at school.  The karate not only involved a huge range of moves but this was also done to music and perfectly in sync. For those who know me I am fond of gymnastics and really enjoyed the dispaly we saw last night which included gymnasts from all years of the school and involved a very much acro style, it was fantastic to see so much going on on stage at teh same time.

Afterwards I spoke to Mr Bassett and Mrs Middleton as I felt I had to say how impressed it was that the school also celebrated the sports success of it's students outside of school. We saw certificates presented and well as hearing stories as to what they had achieved on a county, regional, national and sometime international level. This for me was great as it not only celebrated their success but also rasied awareness of some of the sports including crown green bowling horse riding, snow boarding and ice skating. One that did stand out for me is the success of a student Claudia Walker who plays Girls Football for the girls England squad, not only this but she also travels to leicester every weekend to do coaching and training of others. she came across as well presented and polite, she was a pleasure to meet but more importantly she must be a huge inspiration to the other students there and across Tamworth.

In the above photo you can not only see Claudia Walker but will notice she is also wearing Craig Heaps medals. Craig was last nights guest speaker and was invited as a British Olympian competing in the 2000 Sydney games. This blog entry is getting a bit long and i would not do Mr Heap justice but i will say he made a fantastic inspirational speech about starting from nowhere to achieving a dream and daring to try. He started gymnastic as a 9 year old bouncing around the house and then went on to have 2 golds at commonwealth and compete in the Olympic games, yes he is talented but he also knew what he wanted and worked for it. great inspiration to us all.

Fantastic evening I know i have missed a lot of what I wanted to say but there was just a huge amount of stuff going on.