Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby swim » Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:46 am

smiles wrote:Davie, I don't think it is the comunity that needs convincing with regards the need. The one big problem we have always encountered is the lack of sport interest from people employed in the Council in Campbeltown. There is no interest what so ever in local sports. The same can be said about our local councillors. Then you have the local schools and PE where there is no interest in football at all. Bring back Sandy MacPherson anyday.



We regularly have representation from our local councillors at our monthly South Kintyre Sports Council meetings held in Aqualibrium. I am sure this doesn't happen in all areas of Scotland.

The teaching of physical education in schools has moved on from the days when it was all about football.
Football is and will remain a very important activity taught in PE, in fact this year in the secondary school football was a performance component within Higher PE and a number of students (both male and female) gained A passes in this activity. Football was a popular activity at Inter-House Competition after school and volunteer coaches train school football teams outside school hours, two school teams have competed in competition against other schools within recent weeks. (playing on poor grass pitches!)
Rugby was successfully introduced this year and has proved very popular. With the assistance of our excellent SRU Rugby Development Officer, Billy Thomson and our new janitor we now have a school team and already have had students play in Argyll Schools Select teams against other regions.
When the school estate decision is made and we get sports facilities on a par with other similar sized schools I believe this will make a huge difference to the opportunities available to our young (and not so young) people in this area.
My view is that the community should not rely on the school estate as this will prioritise the needs of the school first and foremost and this may well not be what the community needs.
A community project with the needs for the main user groups of such a facility may well be what is needed, however this is not a fundraising project for a new mini bus! ££££ :shock: :shock:
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby smiles » Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:11 pm

swim wrote:We regularly have representation from our local councillors at our monthly South Kintyre Sports Council meetings held in Aqualibrium. I am sure this doesn't happen in all areas of Scotland.


That is good to hear but does it make any difference? Not sure what difference the Sports Council makes either but im sure you can advise?

swim wrote:The teaching of physical education in schools has moved on from the days when it was all about football.
Football is and will remain a very important activity taught in PE, in fact this year in the secondary school football was a performance component within Higher PE and a number of students (both male and female) gained A passes in this activity. Football was a popular activity at Inter-House Competition after school and volunteer coaches train school football teams outside school hours, two school teams have competed in competition against other schools within recent weeks. (playing on poor grass pitches!)


Swim, that is good to know. Thanks. Your opening line shows you know just about as much about the days gone by as I do about the present day then as it wasn't all about football in these days either. :wink: The PE teachers did however, have a genuine interest in football.
Last edited by Mod8 on Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited to fix quotes
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby swim » Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:17 pm

smiles wrote:That is good to hear but does it make any difference? Not sure what difference the Sports Council makes either but im sure you can advise?


The South Kintyre Sports Council is community group actively trying to help promote all aspects of sport in South Kintyre.
Meetings take place in Aqualibrium on the last Monday of every month (next meeting is on Monday 25th January 2010) at 7pm.

Within recent years the group actively fundraised to replace their old existing minibus, in 18 months raising £25,000 to take delivery of a new 17 seater Ford Transit mini bus. This bus continues to allow our member groups access to affordable travel to sports fixtures etc. This bus has been booked out regularly (most weekends) and has surpassed the groups’ initial projections. Through bus sponsorship and hires the group aims to replace the bus every 5 years. This is a valued resource used by many local groups.

The SKSC has over 30 member groups at present and clubs can benefit from mini bus hire, small grants, regular sports updates and your own club web page on the SKSC website.

The group have organised events such as the ceilidh after the MOKrun and they are actively working towards holding an Awards Ceremony locally in 2010 to recognise sporting achievement etc.
With regard to the all-weather surface, this has been on the agenda at Sports Council Meetings for years (many!) and while we still don’t have this facility in place the group will continue to work hard to make sure this remains high on the agenda.

Smiles, I hope this helps. SKSC will continue to do the groups best for all aspects of sport in South Kintyre. You are more than welcome to join us at our next meeting as further help is always appreciated.
:) :)
Last edited by Mod8 on Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited to fix quotes
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby mrn » Wed Dec 09, 2009 2:31 pm

This certainly is a subject that should gain the whole communities support. Anything to support sport and participation should be encouraged. I know the difference it made on our kids lives.

Why isn't funding available from the Council if facilities have been built elsewhere in Argyll? If the Council can find £500,000 to build a nursery in Campbeltown why can't they find similar money for this?

Davie etc, good luck with this. You have my support!
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby Ranald » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:29 pm

I'll post more on this later but I think a 3g pitch and definitely a 4g one can pretty much be used for any activity which can take place on grass so it would include the whole community.

A lot of sports in town have reasonable facilities - tennis, bowls, swimming, golf - but sports like football, shinty and rugby are making do with things which haven't changed in probably close to 100 years. Ok we have Meadows and Kinloch but with the weather the way it has been over the last couple of seasons these parks have been unplayable for almost the whole winter, which is no use for teams competing in regional and national competitions.
Can you blame the man for going out of his mind temporarily?
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby ultraviolet » Wed Dec 09, 2009 6:20 pm

mrn wrote:If the Council can find £500,000 to build a nursery in Campbeltown why can't they find similar money for this?


Perhaps you need to ask Cllr Donald Kelly to come on board and sort this out? 8)
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby norrie7770 » Thu Dec 10, 2009 3:00 am

As someone looking from outside on this issue, I have been following the saga for some time now. The thing I cannot get my head around is why people of Campbeltown seem to be going cap in hand to authorities for all weather sports pitches - Surely as tax payers (to local/national governement) they should be DEMANDING what is in effect a basic facility enjoyed by virtually every decent sized town up and down the country.
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby Davie P » Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:13 am

Ranald wrote:I'll post more on this later but I think a 3g pitch and definitely a 4g one can pretty much be used for any activity which can take place on grass so it would include the whole community.

A lot of sports in town have reasonable facilities - tennis, bowls, swimming, golf - but sports like football, shinty and rugby are making do with things which haven't changed in probably close to 100 years. Ok we have Meadows and Kinloch but with the weather the way it has been over the last couple of seasons these parks have been unplayable for almost the whole winter, which is no use for teams competing in regional and national competitions.


Yes, Ranald that was an interesting conversation we had and thanks to you and SBPete for looking into this - look forward to your post. 8)

I've also done more research on this as the surfaces have moved on since the Outline Business Case for Campbeltown was completed in 2007. So have the number of governing bodies who are certifying this type of surface:

Football and Rugby

“Such surfaces have already been certified for International football by FIFA and the IRB for rugby.”

Hockey can be added to the list too as

"The enhanced specification of 3G as recommended by the Football Foundation means that this surface conforms to the International Hockey Federation standards.

The parameters for the International Hockey Federation with respect to “ball roll” on 3G pitches are on a scale of between 5 – 15 metres, with 5 metres ball roll being the slowest playing surface and a fifteen metre ball roll being the fastest playing surface."


It does look like a 3G surface encompasses all stakeholders which does make a difference. For information on terms of use of parks in Campbeltown this year there have been 99 bookings - 1 for Rugby, 3 for Shinty and 95 for football. 19 of these were cancelled due to the weather and of these 2 were Shinty (so effectively 66% of their bookings were cancelled). Overall that is 20% of bookings were cancelled and that doesn't even account for all the training sessions, bounce games and non booked games.

Any supporting information helps build the case. Sometimes we take it for granted that everyone does know about this so the more information we have the better.

Right time for nursery and then work! 8)
Last edited by Davie P on Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby 4th gen Suthen' » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:55 am

I watched some of that STV awards programme on Sunday night.

One of the winners, team of the year no less! was Oban Saints.

They had a filmed report from Oban, inteviewing various local football and sporting people, also showing many members of the new all Oban football initiative (can't quite remember its exact name) training one wet night on the beautiful all weather pitch with what looked like SPL standard floodlights.

One of the men interviewed was talking about how great the new pitch and floodlights are compared with those at the old all weather pitch (blaize mind you!) but it did strike me that there has been some sort of all weather facility, with lights, for years......and that is apart from the wee pitch in front of the Atlantis. And we here have had nothing......EVER.

I remember soon after Sandy McPherson came to the Grammar he organised a trip for the school team to go play Dunnon under floodlights.....my goodness, we were hugely excited.......but, it rained and rained and rained. The bus was there to pick us up but the call came in "game off" :( and I never ever got to play under the lights. Think that would have been in early 1976.

Another theme of the piece on Oban Saints was how far they have to travel for every game.......gee whizz, how long from Oban to Glasgow? compared with 3.5 hours from here.
Nothing against the Oban set up and people involved, well done to them, but we need the same chance here.

And on another point mentioned earlier on this thread.
I always felt that the huge boom in Campbeltown/Kintyre football from the mid 70s to late 90s was largely due to Mr McPherson arriving at the Grammar half way through the '73/74 session (I think) and introducing football in a big way to the school.......I remember the day of the big football trials. Everybody was nervous! dozens and dozens in for every age group.....I got picked for the youngest team right back spot, mind you, nobody else was in for it :lol:
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby smiles » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:08 pm

swim wrote:
smiles wrote:That is good to hear but does it make any difference? Not sure what difference the Sports Council makes either but im sure you can advise?


The South Kintyre Sports Council is community group actively trying to help promote all aspects of sport in South Kintyre.
Meetings take place in Aqualibrium on the last Monday of every month (next meeting is on Monday 25th January 2010) at 7pm.

Within recent years the group actively fundraised to replace their old existing minibus, in 18 months raising £25,000 to take delivery of a new 17 seater Ford Transit mini bus. This bus continues to allow our member groups access to affordable travel to sports fixtures etc. This bus has been booked out regularly (most weekends) and has surpassed the groups’ initial projections. Through bus sponsorship and hires the group aims to replace the bus every 5 years. This is a valued resource used by many local groups.

The SKSC has over 30 member groups at present and clubs can benefit from mini bus hire, small grants, regular sports updates and your own club web page on the SKSC website.

The group have organised events such as the ceilidh after the MOKrun and they are actively working towards holding an Awards Ceremony locally in 2010 to recognise sporting achievement etc.
With regard to the all-weather surface, this has been on the agenda at Sports Council Meetings for years (many!) and while we still don’t have this facility in place the group will continue to work hard to make sure this remains high on the agenda.

Smiles, I hope this helps. SKSC will continue to do the groups best for all aspects of sport in South Kintyre. You are more than welcome to join us at our next meeting as further help is always appreciated.
:) :)


Swim, thanks for that information. Actually forgot about the mini bus appeal too. :oops: Well done there.

We visited Stornoway over the summer and were amazed by the facilities for sports they have there including All Weather pitches too. The fact that we are the furthest town from any AWP facility in Scotland is shocking.
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby Davie P » Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:53 pm

Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the Courier last week. It was cut however due to size. Apologies for the poor english in areas - it was written in a hurry.

Dear Sir/Madam,

It is good to see the Campbeltown Courier highlighting the issue with regards no all weather pitch facilities in Campbeltown. The situation with regards the lack of these key facilities is depressing to say the least.

With the recent news that Campbeltown will not be getting a new secondary school in the near future this pushes the delivery of an All Weather Pitch (AWP) further back. In the meantime our local sports clubs continue to suffer while our neighbours (quite rightly so) throughout Argyll enjoy the kind of facilities we should expect in the 21st century.

I thought it may be of interest to highlight the following points to readers. The majority of these are based round points raised by the football community which appears to suffer the most in not having access to an AWP. The campaign for an AWP must encompass the views of all sports but without doubt raising these points from a football perspective helps maximise our case;

1. Campbeltown is the furthest town from a 3rd Generation All Weather Pitch in Mainland Scotland.

2. Campbeltown is the only town in Argyll with two amateur teams playing in the Scottish Amateur Football League (SAFL) - Campbeltown Pupils celebrate their 90th anniversary this year while Campbeltown Boys have played in the SAFL for over 30 years. Tabert AFC make it the third Kintyre side to play in the SAFL meaning that NO team in Kintyre has access to the facilities enjoyed by other larger settlements in Argyll (eg Oban, Dunoon, Helensburg and Rothesay).

3. In SEVENTEEN weeks since the SAFL season started there have only been FOUR games hosted by the two Campbeltown teams (Pupils have hosted 2 at home and the Boys 2 also).

4. Campbeltown Boys were previously threatened with expulsion from the league if they did not improve on the number of games being cancelled at home. This was two years ago and the SAFL said they would review this in 2010 - in that time CBAFC were to work with the Council to improve this situation. This point was re-iterated again at the SAFL meeting on Thursday night at a meeting at Hampden in Glasgow. (concern was raised again at the number of cancellations)

5. All youth football (Campbeltown Soccer Centre, Campbeltown and District Youth Football Association and the schools football) have NO access to any outdoor facilities during the winter. This covers the age groups of 4 - 18 years old. Again the only major community in Argyll to have no access to such facilities. (I am sure we could add to this)

6. Campbeltown and District Amateur Football League run a local league from April to September and were blighted with the number of cancellations this year that could have been played on an AWP.

7. The same league above saw their Provan Sheild Cup Final played in OBAN last Sunday after cancellation after cancellation forced both teams to travel to the north of Argyll to play their cup final on a 3G park.

8. There are NO outdoor training facilities for ANYONE in Campbeltown. NO designated area and NO lights - teams have to train under the street lights! These facilities have not improved in the 90 years Campbeltown Pupils have existed.

9. As stated in previous articles in your paper, we are the only major centre of population in Argyll & Bute with NO access to All Weather Pitch facilities

10. We have the ONLY mainland secondary school without access to All Weather Pitch facilities in the WHOLE of the Argyll & Bute Council area.

Campbeltown was a Priority 1 on the Council Playing Field Strategy for an AWP but is now last and with no answer in sight - why? This is a facility Kintyre needs now. Not in 4 or 5 or 10 years but now.

It would be good if our local newspaper could continue to highlight our plight for an All Weather Pitch and I thought by contacting you with regards the above we can raise awareness of the campaign on a regular basis. There is, after all, so much to be said on this emotive subject. In the meantime South Kintyre Sports Council will continue to raise awareness and I look forward to the proposed meeting in January to discuss the matter further.

For your information, I enclose a list of the current All Weather Pitch facilities available throughout Argyll & Bute Council area.

Yours in sport




David Paterson


Full Size (106x66m) to (90x60m)
Oban Community Sports Field
Hermitage Academy x 2
Lochgilphead HS NPDO
Dunoon Grammar School x2
Rothesay Academy

7 a side (64x45m) to (55x37.5)
Tarbert Community Playing Field
KMMSF Tobermory
Kirkmichael Helensburgh
Lomond School (Private)
Rothesay Multi Use Games Area

5 a side (40x20) to (36x18m)
Garelochhead
Park Primary School
Tiree High School
KMMSF Tobermory
Innellan PS
Parklands Special School
Cowal Community Sports Project
Lochnell SDA
Atlantis Leisure Oban
Taynuilt
Tayvallich
Dervaig
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby John S » Tue Dec 15, 2009 4:11 pm

All Weather Pitch update on my Facebook Case Book
See more details of this discussion on my Facebook Case Book
https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=168869009687
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby Sport » Thu Dec 17, 2009 10:24 am

On-line petition now available at

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/cam ... paign.html

Please show your support by signing this and forwarding the link onto as many people as you know.

Petition is based on original paper one so please sign and show your support. Cllr John Semple is arranging a public meeting with the relevant bodies in mid January and a petition would be useful to show the level of support for this.

We have received communication from both the Rugby and Shinty community supporting the request for an AWP.
Please visit the Sports Council's new website and check out our latest news! http://www.southkintyresportscouncil.com
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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby Davie P » Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:28 am

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Re: Not playing fair! Campbeltown and Kintyre deserves better

Postby Sport » Thu Dec 31, 2009 11:18 am

Good to see the AWP issue is being discussed by the Council at their CHORD CHORD Programme Management Board
Wednesday, 6 January 2010 10:00 am.

4. CAMPBELTOWN ALL WEATHER PITCH FACILITY pdf icon PDF 142 KB

Report by Head of Facility Services

http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/moderngov ... 3962&Ver=4
Please visit the Sports Council's new website and check out our latest news! http://www.southkintyresportscouncil.com
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