Bedford Borough's Rich Sporting Pedigree
On Monday I attended the first part of the Sport Bedford network meeting at Bedford International Athletics Stadium. The event was essentially a relaunch of Sport Bedford, which will now be focused towards ensuring a strong, open network of local clubs and be really responsive to the needs of local sports clubs in Bedford Borough. It will have a smaller executive, which will be focused on delivering a small set of priorities identified by sports clubs themselves. This is a really positive development for local sports clubs, who rely almost exclusively on the hard work and commitment of volunteers who love their sport and go out of their way to give others the opportunity to enjoy them too.
At the beginning of the meeting Howard Darbon, President of Sport Bedford and of Bedford and County Athletics Club, spoke about Bedford's remarkable sporting pedigree, and I couldn't help but think how impressive it would sound to a visitor unaware of our rich sporting heritage. In the present day, we obviously have a wide range of excellent facilities, including a range of publicly available facilities which would be the envy of many other areas. The venue for Monday's meeting itself, for example, has benefitted from major investment, with a new track being one of just a small handful in the country to boast the same surface as that in the Olympic Stadium. We have a rugby club competing at the top end of the country's second tier, and clubs across a huge range of sports such as football, cricket, tennis, martial arts, swimming, athletics, rowing, kayaking and many more which are giving youngsters wonderful opportunities to compete and to develop as sportspeople and helping people enjoy sport into adulthood at all ages. Many of our clubs produce competitors who are helping to Bedford on the map on the national stage, and as Howard also said, you cannot fail to be full of admiration at the exploits of Bedford's young sportspeople, which are celebrated in the annual Sports Awards.
The athletics stadium is also the venue for one of many exciting events taking place locally this summer, namely the 'Olympic Livesite,' which is taking place following our successful bid to be nominated as an official Olympic Livesite venue, complete with a big screen showing main action. The Livesite will offer a free festival of sport over the first weekend in August, with live Olympic action on the big screen and a range of fun activities using the top class facilities on offer. After the weekend, the big screen will stay in place for the rest of the week, with a range of specific events for particular groups, aimed mainly at children, to enjoy.
Finally, I can't end without mentioning a fact which we should all be very proud of, which is that Bedford is hosting more olympic and paralympic teams for pre-games training camps than any other town away from the actual olympic venues themselves. In particular, we have fourteen paralympic teams coming, who I know will enjoy the facilities and the warm welcome they will receive here.