...always the last one picked!

Today, I was sitting in a room filled with complete sporting rejects for over three hours. Now that sounds incredibly harsh and perhaps reject is the wrong word, but to be fair...

I guess it would be a bearable scenario, but given we were discussing the content for a funding bid to deliver doorstep sport across 20 London Boroughs, I did begin to wonder! I tried to convince myself that everyone there had their heart in the right place, but to be honest, every single person was justifying their own involvement in the project to ensure they would benefit from any funding generated and continue to do nothing worthwhile (otherwise known as writing strategy)! The more one person said they could input to the 'fabric' of the application, the more others offered - it was hilarious watching a bunch of people try and make bold and meaningful statements in waffle warfare; 'in essence we must look for sustainable models', 'upscale and build in potential capacity', 'replicate not duplicate' to name a few!

There was a number cruncher with his bug eye glasses, nervy speech and sports branded file (about the only sporty thing about him to be fair, so clearly not a particularly gifted cricketer), then there was a beanpole who looked like he had been around forever, a real Dumbledoor who knew best and had clearly been so successful with his knowledge that he had remained in the same job for decades! Then we had the token fat bloke, a dead ringer for James Cordon in fact - how annoying was this guy, late sitting down as he was gorging on biscuits, going to the toilet at inappropriate moments which then meant everyone had to get up to let him pass when he returned, ugh!

Following on from fat boy, we had the token 'right on' woman; almost likable but then she opened her mouth - literally spewing 'keynote phrases', acronyms and throwing spanners into the already rattling works! We had thin, fat, old, young, smart, dumb, bald, frizzy, intense, horizontal, square glasses, pointy shoes, heels, leather briefcases, designer stubble, you name it, we had it - in one room! It felt like I was in a real life version of the board game 'Guess Who?' and as the morning went on, I found myself flicking them down one by one.

The topic and purpose of the meeting was to bring various 'target audiences' together to 'broker' partnerships and better 'engage' to assist one another in achieving our desired 'agendas' in terms of 'participation targets' and 'legacy'....basically, a shit load of people all being paid to figure out how they can get hold of money to pay for some other poor bugger to deliver doorstop sport in really shitty areas (sorry areas of deprivation)!

So, looking around the room there appeared to be four people who looked like they were capable of playing sport without having a heart attack or breaking a nail, the rest were clueless, but could spout some very interesting one liners about inclusivity, building capacity, employment potential, reduction stats for ASB, blah, blah, blah...

Anyway, back to my point...the room was filled with sporting rejects, excluding the four that remained standing in my game of 'Guess Who?'as these turned out to be existing deliverers of doorstep sport in deprived areas, with scars to prove it (no joke!) The rest, for one reason or another had fallen into these roles which gave them a sense of power and importance - I guess being the last to be picked for the team at school really affects some people!

Perhaps I am being super cynical, but you have to question the 'chiefs' that get paid to decide what the 'Indians' do; especially when the 'chiefs' could barely organise lunch never mind teach basketball to a bunch of knife wielding, social misfits in a car park on a dodgy estate! So, for those that are good at sport, make sure you spend a bit of time learning how to read, spell, oh and write policy and strategy too, as one day you may end up justifying yourself to a sporting reject who can't catch!