Published: Thursday, 4th September, 2008 5:20pm

Running club forced to turn away squadful of Olympic hopefuls

by Simon Harris

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A SHORTAGE of volunteers has forced Pitreavie AAC to turn away a squadful of potential track and field stars.

The "Olympics Effect" has led to a massive surge in interest among West Fife kids looking to join the Dunfermline-based athletics club.

Normally, the club has two or three new starts a month but in the fortnight since the Beijing games ended, 23 wannabe athletes have turned up wanting to train.

But, heartbreakingly for the club, officials have had to place 17 kids on a waiting list as they simply lack the volunteers to coach them.

'It"s a real tragedy for us if we can"t take them right away,' Pitreavie president Shelagh Young told Press Sport.

'You see them coming with their sports gear and their bottles of water and it"s horrible to turn people away – really horrible.

'We always lose a lot of youngsters in winter as it"s a hard slog to get really fit and we do lose people.

"The upsurge of interest is going to include people who"ve not thought it through but you can"t predict who will stick with it.

'When you turn someone away you have absolutely no idea if you have just turned away the next club stalwart who would go right through the age groups and compete in championships.'

The age of the 23 kids wanting to get on track ranges from eight to 16 and Shelagh sighed, 'That"s the most unusual thing – we very rarely get older teenagers wanting to start with us and quite a lot of those have been girls, which is brilliant.

'But we are really up against it in terms of volunteers. It"s a real struggle.'

The club has around nine regular coaches with two qualified coaches for the younger age group (9-12) and four who look after the next age group, the under-13s and under-15s.

Another four could make all the difference between 17 kids who want to get active now and them deciding not to bother by the time the club can take them, according to Shelagh.

'There"s a real chronic need for coaches at the beginners" end to make sure the kids have a positive, welcoming experience so they stick with it,' she revealed.

'If we don"t have enough coaches, kids may not get enough attention and it would be so easy for them to drop out of sport as there are so many things for teenagers to do instead.'

Potential coaches need not have a glorious track record of sporting prowess themselves.

Far from it, as Shelagh explained. 'It"s a myth that you have to be super fit to be a sports coach. You just have to be friendly, sensible and approachable – and like children!

'We have some really good parent helpers but I think sports clubs are beginning to mine the parent market dry.

'I"ve been there myself and it can be hard if you"re a working parent, you drop the kids off at athletics and then it"s off to do the shopping at Tesco.

"There"s a time issue and it"s a bit unrealistic to always expect parents to provide support.

'We have to get a bit more creative. We are interested in older people if they have got a bit more time on their hands.

'We"re also keen to see younger people coming forward who might want to gain sports leadership qualifications. We will support them to start doing their qualifications from 16.

'And if just one person turned up who already has any multi-sports or athletics qualifications we could invite back those people we have turned away.'

But Shelagh insists potential volunteer coaches need not have mastered sports science to get involved and make a difference to kids" lives.

'The basics are run, jump and throw and all you need to do is have a sense of fun and understand how to turn basic activities into fun activities and that"s what the training teaches you,' she explained.

'We"re talking about a one-day course which teaches you how to keep kids safe and how to do a variety of activities which stretches the kids" fitness and enables them to get fun out of it.

"The minimum commitment would be one session per week. There"s no need for it to be a lifelong commitment. If someone could put in one or two years with us that would be fantastic.

'The trouble with volunteering is that it"s hard to get over that first hurdle – people think that if they get involved in something, they won"t be able to get out.

"What we need is more people giving some of their time rather than relying on the same club stalwarts.'

A project manager who"s about to start work on climate change, Shelagh"s own example underlines the type of person who could make a massive difference to West Fife youngsters.

'I have never been sporty at all in my life, you could say I"m hopeless in terms of my sporting experience, but when my kids started at the club I could see they lacked for a few coaches and decided to get involved,' she said.

'I never in my wildest dreams thought I would enjoy working with children – I didn"t think I would have enough patience – but I have been stunned at just how rewarding I have found it.

"I have really got a lot more out of it than I expected. It brought me a lot of contact with a lot of local people I would not otherwise have had.'

Can you help the West Fife kids inspired by Great Britain"s Olympics medal haul to get on track with Pitreavie? If you think you can, call Shelagh Young on 07834 924435.