“It’s the taking part that counts...”
Or is it?
I’m a big fan of taking part in sport: it keeps us fit, improves our team skills, helps us react better to challenging situations and encourages us to take responsibility. But, are we missing out if we just stop at “taking part”? You can bet that premiership football managers don’t finish their team talks with “remember lads, it’s not the winning that counts...”!
Clearly big business football is different from big hearted youthwork, yet perhaps we miss a trick if we don’t learn something from pursuing victory. One of the largest hurdles to success that I see in the lives of young people in Bermondsey isn’t a lack of ability – there’s plenty of real talent – but a lack of aspiration. Think about it... If you never dream of playing for Chelsea, you’ll never go to trials. Or if you never dream of being a doctor, you won’t apply to medical school.
We see it time and again: young people who have the ability to do something special with their lives, getting stuck with people around them telling them that they can’t. Sometimes it’s really subtle – maybe the whole family is bright, but no-one’s ever gone onto further education, so when the youngest does really well in exams, no-one encourages her to apply to university. Sometimes it’s really obvious – you meet a parent and you hear the way they are always telling their child that they aren’t good enough, or joking about them to others.
I think it’s perfectly possible to go through life without ever doing more than simply “taking part”. With this mentality, you’d never go out and scour the jobsites for a career, or train harder than your mates to make the team. Sure, you might not taste defeat, but you’d never experience victory and catch the buzz for working hard to succeed again.
Winning doesn’t just involve having the highest score; for me it’s about going above and beyond mere “taking part”. So maybe it is being the top goalscorer, or best trampolinist, or the person who’s picked first for the team. But maybe it’s also about being the person who someone trusts to hold their lifeline on the climbing wall... maybe it’s about being the person who stays a little longer to help clear up the equipment with a member of staff and gets chatting about doing a coaching course... maybe it’s about being the person who rallies the team when they are three goals down.
So the next time I see someone gutted by a last minute winner from the other team, or frustrated that they missed the target at a crucial moment, I’m not going to try and console them with empty words about just “taking part”...I’m going to try and fire them up to work harder so that next time they get to win! The next time I hear someone offer to help me clear up equipment, I’m not going to think that it’d be quicker if I did it myself... I’m going to show them that I’m grateful they are going beyond just “taking part”.
One of my heroes said “in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize... Run in such a way as to get the prize!”. If a young person embraces this way of thinking in one of our sessions in the sports hall, gym or climbing wall, then they stand a better chance of living a life that goes far above those who think that it’s just about “taking part”!
Guy Foxell
Youth Work Manager, Sports
