ON the back of Andy Murray's incredible victory at Wimbledon, DAVID McCARTHY argues that the government need to do more than just throw money at the sport if we are to produce more top players.
Andy Murray with the Holy Grail of tennis, the Wimbledon trophy
Julian Finney/Getty Images
MY three-year-old has swapped making a racket for swishing a racquet.
He loves Batman and Spiderman but now another superhero has entered his universe and his name is Andy Murray.
Throughout Sunday night, wee Jamie was running about our house yelling 'Come On Andy' only to be told by Sam, his big brother, 'He's already won, silly'.
That wasn't the point. The fact is that a little boy of three who couldn't tell you who David Beckham, Usain Bolt, Ally McCoist or Neil Lennon are, knows exactly who Murray is and was running around wielding a plastic racquet.
He'll get a real one shortly and maybe one day he will dream of winning Wimbledon, as millions of kids will be doing in the wake of Murray's victory.
And maybe, just maybe, one of them will realise that dream. Who knows? Nobody could have imagined a boy from Dunblane would do it, so anything is possible.
Or is it?
Maybe, but it will take a big change in the attitude of the people who run that sport in this country, and in the Government that funds it.
Yes, Holyrood has just announced that it is pumping £5.8m into the sport in Scotland.
But despite that, Murray has become the player he is in spite of being British and not because of it.
The facilities available to him in Dunblane, in Scotland and in the UK as a promising teenager were not sufficient to give him the chance to make the leap required to forge his way to the top of the world game.
So Murray went to Barcelona to learn his trade.
His family, steeped in sport but by no means wealthy, made huge sacrifices to give him his chance and the results of what must have been an emotional decision - to allow their 16-year-old son to move to a foreign land - has been vindicated and not only in a tennis sense.
Will and Judy Murray's boy has turned into such a well-rounded, articulate and simply decent young man.
But a decade ago, in Britain, Murray was practising against his brother Jamie. In Barcelona, at the same time, a young Rafa Nadal was being honed by Carlos Moya, who just happened to be World No.1.
So Murray upped sticks but what of those who have come through the Lawn Tennis Association system? What have they done?
The men are going nowhere in the game and the women? Laura Robson and Heather Watson have the occasional decent result but for a sport that is receiving a king's ransom compared to others the results in terms of producing genuine talent have been appalling.
Taking our man Murray out of the equation as well as Robson, the All England Club handed out seven wildcards to British players and not one of them made it past the first round.
Murray's victory was wonderful and Scotland had a spring in its step on Monday morning. Not even the politicians who tried to hijack his victory could take the smile off our faces.
Alex Salmond waved the Saltire behind David Cameron's back. Ed Milliband was there as well. He and Cameron looked as if they might have played tennis in their time, in some upper class club in England's green and pleasant land.
But they all wanted to bask in the reflected glory of Murray's victory.
What they should be doing is building more tennis courts. Salmond will say you can build plenty for £5.8m but why wasn't that cash found years ago?
What should have been implemented years ago is a system where every kid in the country can have free access to a tennis court for at least an hour a week, a fortnight or a month, whatever is feasible. Let them get a feel for the game and if they love it, who knows what could happen?
via SportZINE 69