So, why do we make This Sporting Life so difficult?
One of our main goals should be making sport accessible
By Alan Marriott @iwcpalan Editor
An artist's impression of the Seaclose Park stadium which will now not be going ahead.
Last month, I, along with 10 other slightly less corpulent and certainly more fit, men of a certain age, hauled ourselves over to New Milton to take part in the comedy spectacle that is veterans' football.
The fact we were heavily beaten by a team with a considerably smaller combined age is not really the point of these occasions. We convinced ourselves we were hard done by, the ref got the decisions wrong and the goals we did score became Kevin De Brune-esque by the time we were on our fourth post-match pint.
The fact is, we were out there doing it...as tens of thousands of footballers, cricketers, rugby players, hockey teams and individual athletes are every weekend.
Standards vary greatly between our own circus-style performance and the talented sportspeople who are on the way to better things in their athletic careers.
But what we all have in common is the need for a space to strut our stuff...a recreation ground, a sports centre, a netball court or a 3G hockey pitch.
New Milton's small-town recreation ground was a bit of a revelation. The town's football team were taking on our own Newport that day in their own stadium adjoining the recreational pitches.
There were also very decent changing facilities with good showers, a first aid room and parking area.
Which got me to thinking about the recent Seaclose debacle.
Cllr Matt Price's idea for Newport FC to move to the town recreation ground on an artificial pitch, available for public hire, and with its own changing facilities and floodlights, seemed a minor stroke of genius.
What was not to like?
Junior teams, women's teams, disability teams could all have shared this central facility, with the recreational pitches and netball courts co-existing happily and benefitting from better changing rooms which could have attracted central funding and moved a step up from the tired and battered portable buildings currently used.
But, apparently, it was all too difficult.
So Newport FC face a future at a site a good couple of miles from town (three or four if you live in Carisbrooke or Gunville) at the Racecourse roundabout. I wish them well and the community use is still assured (although God help you if you don't have a car).
But, with football attendances dwindling anyway, I am not sure Bert and Joe will be still making the effort on a wet November Wednesday night, to go and cheer on the team.
No-one has adequately explained why one of the Island's major sporting facilities can't be used for...er, sport?
Another example of this sporting malaise is with indoor cricket. This year around 17 teams signalled interest in taking part. But finding a venue has been a nightmare, with only the Island Free School's Rew Valley Sports Centre available, and then with certain caveats.
It's great that cricket is getting the game on but the reluctance of schools to make their sports halls available for community use, is nothing short of disgraceful, particularly when, in some cases, those facilities were paid for by Sport England with that usage in mind.
The tabloids, politicians and health bosses bang on about the obesity crisis but what can we expect when we make it so difficult for people young and old to enjoy sport in surroundings fit for human consumption.