But you have to look at what our club are doing in the community, and it's a token service if you ask me, nothing but a PR job by the club, with no interest in local talent, we have really got to get back to some serious youth development, and some forward thinking on this issue, which would be a start in the right direction!............
I think you can thank the incredibly nationalistic education board in Wales for that, they have pushed Rugby in schools for all the time that I can remember. That may have been fine in the valleys where it was the preferred sport but in the cities football was always the big sport and the kids were massively let down. To be a PE Teacher it seemed you only had to know all the positions in Rugby, our football coach was the head of the D.T. department but the four fulltime P.E. Teachers were all Rugby coaches. It is a scandalous situation because in the school yards during the breaks everybody played football, not Rugby. When we were taken to the playing fields for PE all three fields had rugby posts, none for football. When one of our best footballers in the schools history asked why they weren't given him proper training he was told it was because Rugby was the national sport. Bollocks! I see more people playing football and Saturday afternoons that Rugby! If you look at the evening post there are lots of reports of local football teams, the local rugby match reports are almost nowhere to be seen! So the football clubs in Wales are not getting any support in Wales from the government and the education board, who are stupidly patriotic to the point they cannot see what Wales' real national sport is, and the only solution looks as if the Swans will have to do the work themselves. Imagine the impact of Swansea City FC inviting the P.E. Teachers who specialise in football to come and learn their techniques, they could even invite the coaches at amateur level to witness how it should be done. That knowledge would be passed down in to the 5 or 6 year olds and that would give Swansea and Wales a much better prospect. Let's say they started with the schools first because every kid has to do P.E. and we could see a massive improvement in local talent.
I can only speak from my experience with my kids Swansea primary. PE is an almost afterthought and the lesson can often be replaced to rehearse for some upcoming show/event. There are teachers there who are Welsh internationals in many team sports but are not utilized. Competitiveness is now frowned upon. The new breed of teachers are reluctant to do extra curricular activities. My daughter has just gone to comprehensive and is learning sports like hockey/netball for the first time. Its now almost seems the sole responsibility is on the parents to provide the sports stars of tomorrow. And they wonder why kids weights are increasing! Seems they have forgotten PE stands for Physical Education. Bleedin crazy.
