THE REALITY The Badminton event at the Commonweath Games is sure to be stunning, viewer numbers will be high and as at Atlanta and Sydney the TV commentaters will be raving about the sport. THE DREAM Richard Branson or some other multi-millionaire will rush to the B A of E and offer not only to fund a national league but to finance the TV costs
dont tease please, that would be really awesome. But no harm in dreaming i suppose, hmmm maybe we should form a constituency or some kind of badminton affiliated governing body and approach Richard Branson, you never know...?
entertaining thought, but life is so often full of dreams which die... then sadness and disillusion fill the mind... If you want anything in life you must strive for it and work for it yourself. If you beliee in the sport "go out to the world" and promote the sport, encourage people to join the local clubs, challenge the bureacracy and red tape of the mean pocketed B A of E and othr such organisations who make the money themselves and don't invest back into the sport. Go on Johnboy - you can do it! Good luck
Dream On, please tell us more.....? So Dream On, is there something u know that we should?? I also find the Baofe very Toffee Nosed, but is there anything inparticular that u are referring to when talking about Red Tape and that they are not putting as much into Badminton as they could??
I certainly do go 'out to the world' and promote our sport, unfortunately my atempts are not met with welcoming arms, wether that is due to my personality, the presentation of my ideas or (as I think is more likely, that not enough people are interested in badminton. I am interetsed in what you mean by the bureacracy and red tape of the mean pocketed B A of E. What exactly are you refering to, do you actually have any actual instances or is this just another ill informed, easy to make accusation..please give us details. Also who are the other organisations who make money themselves and don't invest it back. In one respect Dream On you are right, we all have a responsibility to ensure our sport grows, so be honest know.... when did you last contact the BBC and the like to complain about the lack of badminton
Hi Johnboy I suppose I contact the BBC, ITV and Sky Sports - where I am fortunate enough to have "contacts" about once a month. I have even taken to writing in - under different names - to try and raise the profile and coverage of badminton on these channels... Like you, I find it frustrating to meet with the "lack of interest" and "brick walling" that tends to go on I think the "raising of profile" should start nearer to home, perhaps in ones local county, perhaps through these measely funded County Development Managers funded at some extortioante fee (not!!) by the mean pocketed B A of E I fear it will take more than the likes of you and I to succeed in this plight, but if we start by getting more people who genuinely "are" interested in the sport (ie through forums such as this, BAdminton Uk, etc) and get them also to write to tv stations, B A of E, IBF, etc we may eventually make progress. It is a long and steep hill - which I find very frustrating, especially given that badminton is stated as being "The most popular racquet sport! - if it is.... why is ther so much tennis and squash on tv???
Hi Dream On I think the main problem is at grass roots level, I do not know what part of the country you are from but in my area (Home Counties) it is a real struggle to get people to help in even minor roles let alone to help out on a county committee. I play for two successful league teams, and each year as the AGMs approach there is a sense of panic if an existing committee member is standing down, as we know what a struggle it will be to find somebody to take their place. An embarrased silence exists when volunteers are requested, however twenty minutes later when somebody suggests dropping a team or hints that one club night may have to be lost and all hell is let loose....in short the majority of players are only interested in getting on court and hitting shuttles. Ask people what they want to see in the 'Badminton' magazine and they will say 'local league results'. The same people will then moan like @!#$ when the pages are full of results that come from leagues other than theirs. You talk about the mean pocketed B A of E as regards the funding of County Development Officers, where do you think the money comes from to pay these officers, from the very people who moan about how much the B A of E costs them a year. God knows what reation you would get if you asked them to pay more. I know a lot of people at the B A of E and beleive it or not they work bloody hard trying to improve the profile of Badminton with very limited resources, the problem is that other sports have a higher profile (they have far more cash to throw about) so badminton loses out.
Hi there you make a valid point about other sports having more money... why is that? How come they manage to get sponsorship and funding when "the most popular racquet sport" suffers as "the poor relation" I know some of the people at B A of E work hard - and for peanuts too! I know there are other jobs in the offing - and the salary bands are massively below market standards for management positions. It seems to me that there needs to be a new marketing initiative, for certainly the one they have now doesn't work at all well. As a matter of interest, why do you think it is other countries - specifically the nordic regions and asian regions get better quality players and are better resourced? What is it we in the UK are doing wrong - is it us.... the players, is it the B A of E - and their current strategy.... If Badminton was a company the receivers would have been in long ago.... food for thought, eh
Re: A Dream or is it reality...... "As a matter of interest, why do you think it is other countries - specifically the nordic regions and asian regions get better quality players and are better resourced? What is it we in the UK are doing wrong - is it us.... the players, is it the B A of E - and their current strategy.... " Here are some possible reasons: 1) money and fame in your own country. What do you get for playing badminton for England, Wales, Scotland? A load of hassle if Richard Vaughn is to be believed. 2) In UK, people's interest is spread out over many sports diluting the potential talent pool. You get people trying to make it in football, snooker, golf, rugby, cricket. It's really difficult to get a World Champion if resources are spread so thin. 3) Success breeds success. Malaysia/Indonesia target badminton as they historically are better than Western countries in terms of victories. It is impressive for a young Asian to know that Asians are the best at a sport considering past history of colonism subversion. Asians can identfy with these role models. 4) China's programme probably started from communist roots (speculation) 5) Denmark has always been strong. Sven Pri/Fleming Delfs/Morten Frost. I think Camilla was the only Danish Olympic medal winner last time round. She was World Champion in her home Arena. That was fame for her, and encourages the sport in Denmark. Musn't forget Peter Ramussen as well before that. 6) In UK, there is a great setup for grassroots football but for badminton, this is underdeveloped. It's the opposite in Asian countries. It takes many years and a lot of Government support for such a system to evolve. 7) Who is a role model for badminton in UK? Even if a UK person did win a major event, would it be reported with pictures in the media? 9) UK have had world champions....Nora Perry/Gillian Gilks. What happened to them? A lost opportunity in that era. 10) Perhaps there was a barrier to learning from non-English counterparts in the past. Just note the tension generated when Sven Goran Eriksson was mooted as England manager. At least in badminton, they realised that coaches from different sources can benefit players and had the guts to employ them. In conclusion, I think England's results are better now than 10 years ago so something must be going in the right direction. There will always be a lag period before the full benefits of change are realised. It may take another 10 years! Hopefully, the Commonwealth games and B'ham 2003 will have TV coverage. It's a golden opportunity. Just think back to May 1993 in B'ham - there was a tournament called the World Championships being held. Any of it get on to UK TV? That lack of coverage shouldn't be repeated.
Re: A Dream or is it reality...... I agree that Badminton in this country is in a poor state but like you Chung I think that at last we are going the right way. You ask "why do we think the nordic and asian regions get better quality players" I feel that the main reason is that the game has a far higher profile in those areas, In the Far East badminton is ranked as a National Sport (as apposed to a secondary one here) consequently more people play, and the more players you have the greater your pool of potential champions. What are we doing wrong ? I think the answer now is nothing, the problem I feel started back in the late 70's and 80's when multi court sports halls started to spring up !!!!! This of course should have been the great catalyst for Badminton unfortunately many clubs gave up their old traditional club nights in the local village and school halls and started playing in those wonderful purpose built arenas, unfortunately the court costs started to climb and court availability became harder to find as competition grew from a multitude of other sports. Returning to the old Village halls was not an real option, even if the old nights were still available most clubs had grown to big to realisticly return to one court halls. It was about this time that I first began to notice the reluctance to bring junior members into the clubs, whilst virtually everybody agreed that juniors were to lifeblood of the sport too many people were not prepared to give up one or more of their 'expensive' games to play with a child..they perhaps only got four games per club night and they wanted four good games, not three good and one with a passenger. The exit routes for kids playing at junior clubs were thus drastically slashed, God knows how many players (regardless of ability) were lost to the game because there was no a local senior club for them to join. Even the enlightened clubs often would only take a couple of 'promising' juniors, how many god players gave up because they could not play with their mates. It was far more fun to kick a ball into the net With your mates that hit a shuttle over the net with a bunch of ADULTS!!!!. Add to this a drop in the number of schools playing Badminton and you have the start of what we are now beginning to suffer, the marginalisation (is that a real word) of the game. Thankfully the trend is now changing and the opportunities for juniors to play are increasing, coaching is now more available with the result that a culture of acceptance of coaching advice is now rife,the days have thankfully pasted when our players seemed to think that they were too good to be coached. That is something that staggered people like Park Joo Bong, when players not only queried his advice but often questioned it. In Asia the social set up is utterly different, it being almost unheard of to question a coach. Whilst this may have drawbacks if the coach is not up to the job at least the culture has always been in place that if the coach says you work until you drop.... then you do it, for to long our players stopped when they felt tired or missed a session if the TV was good that night . Again thankfully the penny seems to have dropped and the workrate has increased. Hopefully we will do well in the Commonwealth Games and something will develop from the TV coverage. Nothing improves the ratings like a handfull of Medals. The problem is of course how do you keep the sport on TV after the games, it does not matter how much effort the BAof E put in if there is not a demand from the public to back them
Re: A Dream or is it reality...... People used to question Park Joo Bong's advice?......do you mind if I can just take the advice, bottle it up and keep it if they don't want it? It looks like BAofE's strategy is to get more grassroot coaches out there to increase the catchment of potential juniors first. Then focus on the talent that filters through. This will also increase the awareness of badminton amongst the non-players.... Keep up the good work.
Reality......for juniors On the other hand, cost of courts might be the major factor that strangles the game. Any increase is passed on to clubs and tournaments. How about junior tournament scene? Before, there used to be no alternate route for juniors to continue to play if beaten in the 1st round. It's no fun to pay tournament fees and then get knocked out 1st round with no other games to play. That hardly builds morale and makes people think twice about travelling further for tournaments. Perhaps a plate section in the majority of junior district and county tournaments can be considered if not already in place. Esp with the advent of 5 x 7 it wouldn't be worth the effort to travel over an hour just for a 10-15 minute match.
Re: A Dream or is it reality...... grassroot. what forms the "grassroot"? elementary school? secondary school? or are there other "training camps" or private training for juniors? i went through 2 different schools in the UK, one didn't have a gym to play badminton. well, ok, it did, but it looked like a storage room more than a gym. the other one has a very nice gym, however, the "training" was missing. we just played on our own, there was a teacher who was in charge, but unfortunately, we were much better than him! our school did pretty well, we beat all the schools other than one which has 75% county juniors. what is with these other schools then? i don't believe we were "good" either. i honestly didn't feel any wide-spread grassroot effort in the UK. at least that was the case 10-12 yrs ago.
Re: Reality......for juniors I agree with you Cheung, traveling any distance knowing that you may only get one game is hardly going to intice players to enter tournaments, running a 'plate' however still means that a lot of players will only get two games. A far better option is a round robin, even a group of four gives everybody three games. The National Under 19s is taking place in Bolton this comming weekend, I wonder how those players who know they will probably be knocked out in the first round feel about travelling from far flung Essex or Kent. The problem is of course that events of this type are invaluble training grounds for the International players of tomorrow who may one day have to travel not to Bolton but Beijing only to sufer the same fate, How do they motivate themselves ????
Re: A Dream or is it reality...... My wife is a teacher at a local school and, like me a BAof E coach, two years ago she reluctantly stopped running her schools badminton club, primarily because she did not need the extra hassle after a stressful working day, however she also found that arranging matches against another school was a real nightmare, only one other school for that age group in town (population about 50,000) had a badminton club and the next nearest was about 10 miles away, and to play them parents were needed as taxi drivers etc and to organise that was hell itself. If my wife was unable to run the club for any reason it had to be cancelled for that week as she could not get anybody to take over be they fellow teachers,or....even more shocking, any parents. We now run a junior section before our senior club night, each week about 30 kids turn up (despite our coaching !!) and clearly enjoy themselves. We are lucky that a couple of the senior club members turn up to help, probably only because their children are playing but we very very very rarely see a parent. This is a problem that will continue, and I am sure ours is not an isolated case, parents and indeed other senior club players will all promise to turn up and help but,strangely, on the particular day you request their help they always seem to have made 'other'arrangements. We also have a problem with our venue, we can only have the hall for 1, yes one hour, before the senior club starts as the hall is let out to a five a side football group. We have 'suggested' that as badminton can only be played indoors (at leastin good old sunny England) and that football can be played outdoors, that the football club play on the superb redgra surface outside whilst we use the hall. Unfortunately the footballers refuse to move and even the incentive of having extra revenue fails to get the centre staff to back our case. Consequently we have a measley one hour in which to warm up, give a little coaching and len let the children play games, hardly the good breeding ground for the future. If anybody out there has any strategy that we can use o get more court time then PLEASE let me know
Re: A Dream or is it reality...... johnboy, i am sorry to hear that you and your wife have so much problem keeping your club going. where are you located? back in my secondary school days, we had to spent 3 afternoon playing sport. badminton is one of the many sports we can pick as our main game. so that's what i did. play 3 afternoon of badminton everyweek, the gym was reserved for us for that purpose and we will have 4 badminton courts. some of us are in the team and we will represent our school. there must be a league or something like that in our region for secondary schools. we would hop on the school van and travel to other schools for the matches. sometimes it will take an hour or two's drive just to play a match. it seems that badminton always have lower priority in schools or other gyms. fast forward to when i was in graduate school. badminton players will sometimes get kicked out of the school gyms because some basketball coach decides that they need a last minute practice, even when we have the court booked! and recently, we were playing a tournament in a local school gym, we were kicked out by the basketball coach because they needed the practice, we were kicked out right at the middle of the tournament! it happens once again with volleyball as well.
