The Leisure Review: La Flamme Rouge

La Flamme Rouge edition 12; dateline 9 February 2016

Who’s your choice for a leisure hall of fame?
Elsewhere in this issue, Julian Leybourne celebrates the contribution of some of the former leading lights of the sport, leisure and culture sector, suggesting a hall of fame to acknowledge the shoulders on which the future leaders of the sector might be standing. It prompts the question, of course, of who might be invited to join such a pantheon of the leisure sector. Please feel free to forward your suggestions to the editor, accompanied by a very short citation that may explain the greatness displayed and the gratitude due. We'll let the right people know who you choose.

For the leisure professional who has everything
Fancy a riverside country retreat with scope for significant refurbishment and extension, including an indoor swimming pool, 13-car garage, boat house and tennis court? Of course you do. Would it need to be within easy commuting distance of London and handy for a direct train connection to the capital? How about a history that includes close association with our beloved sport, leisure and culture sector? Look no further than www.grottoonthethames.co.uk

Sport apocalypse: having fun and watching on TV
A good few weeks ago the Guardian’s sports pages included a piece by Andy Bull, who usually frequents their cricket desk, musing on the process by which children get drawn into playing sport. Friends, parents or another significant adult taking them along to the club, cricket or otherwise, are the most common routes. Towards the end of the piece, Bull recalled a conversation with Buck Anderson, the New Zealand Rugby Union’s community manager, who explained the NZRU’s concept of success. “It is about these kids having fun and enjoyment with their mates,” Anderson said, “learning the skills, being part of the national game. Having that love of the game that will then mean they watch it on TV, they buy Sky subscriptions, they join their provincial union. And more importantly than all of that, that in a generation’s time they are the new set of parents who take their kids to play rugby, who help run Saturday morning kids’ rugby, who go and do a bit of coaching.” It’s the sort of thing that is worth remembering when you sit down to negotiate your next TV rights deal or wonder why not as many people are playing as a generation ago.

Tennis reacts to corruption rumours: nothing to see here
With the whiff of corruption now pervading every corner of the sporting firmament, it was only a matter of time before the wonderful world of tennis returned to the inquisitor’s spotlight. Stories of match-fixing swirled around the first days of the Australian Open and it was heartening for anyone who loves to see grown men and women with their fingers in their ears singing ‘La la la’ in the hope that everyone goes away. Tennis professionals, among them players and administrators, queued up to express their firm opinion that the allegations were ridiculous, that tennis remained unsullied by any nefarious practices and that all ‘tanking’ (what we now know the tennis world calls throwing a match or part thereof) stories were another example of a malicious media trying to spoil everyone’s very lucrative fun. All great fun until a certain Mr Murray arrived to offer a contrasting perspective, including warnings that tennis needs to take all this sort of stuff seriously and should start with having a long hard think about the wisdom of having betting companies sponsoring tournaments. If any strawberries were available at the Australian Open they may well have had something of a salty taste thereafter; similarly – and far more likely in light of Australian snacking preferences – the chips.

Twisting in the wind
The Orbit tower, the bit of amusingly curved steel at the Olympic Park, is apparently losing ten grand a week, according to a disgruntled member of the London Assembly who has looked at the 2014/15 annual report. Commissioned by the mayor, one Mr B Johnson, at a cost of £3.1 million, the tower is the tallest sculpture in the UK but even this allure has not prevented it having its visitor projections downgraded from 350,000 a year to 150,000. The tower was expected to generate £1.2 million in annual profit but is obviously some way short. A spokesperson for the London Legacy Development Corporation who is saddled with [Shurely responsible for? Ed] the tower said getting 200,000 visitors since it reopened in 2014 was “a tremendous achievement”.

The romantic’s guide to sport
Amid all the furore after the so-well-named-you-couldn’t-put-in-fiction Tyson Fury won one of the many world title belts available to aspiring boxing professionals, it was touching to see the minister for sport displaying a properly romantic vision of her brief. Fury, you may recall, took the opportunity of his time in the sporting spotlight to explain some of his views on sexual and gender politics, most of which seemed to fall into the column marked, if we are being generous, ‘outdated’. Tracey Crouch, the minister currently juggling the hot potato that is the sports brief, expressed her disappointment with Fury’s comments, telling the BBC that “everybody in sport… is a role model for youngsters in this country and they should always remember that”. Such views might easily fall into the same column, or perhaps an adjacent column marked ‘quaint but redundant’. A real cause for ministerial comment would be when finding a high-profile sports person worthy of our respect for anything other than their expertise on or within their chosen field. There are a few about but they are not quite as common as the minister might have us believe.

Best wishes
And speaking of the minister for sport, according to The Spectator, the thinking Conservative’s organ of choice, Ms Crouch could well be about to become the first Tory minister to go on maternity leave. Our best wishes to her and her imminent arrival.

Growing your own military expert
As we know, the chancellor’s love of austerity measures have left no part of the UK untouched, including the armed forces, which are, like everyone else who doesn’t happen to find themselves fortunate enough to be quite wealthy already, having to consider how do more with less. This might also be reflected by the announcement by British Military Fitness that they are starting their own training academy. Being exceptionally ill-informed on military matters, we at La Flamme Rouge always assumed that if any organisation could rely on a steady stream of well-trained recruits, all with their own boots and regulation haircuts, it was BMF. However, now they’ve decided to start growing their own. We wish them the best of luck.

Sinking funds for museum
News reaches us that an underwater museum has been opened in the warm waters lapping the beaches of Lanzarote. No doubt the chancellor will be giving this prospect his most urgent attention. He’s already sunk the UK’s libraries so perhaps he could do the same with our museums?

Mrs Smith