Campbeltown’s pitch for a pitch – drop in and help

Be there. Tomorrow. Wednesday 10th March. 11.00am-7.00pm. Campbeltown Town Hall. 

This is the Drop-in session arranged by Argyll and Bute Council to let everybody discover, ask questions about and talk to people about the great swathe of developments and initiatives slated for Campbeltown.

The campaign for an all weather sports pitch for the town will be there. Ask to lodge a written note of support, asking for the Campbeltown CHORD project to include a 3G all weather pitch.

If it’s clear that a lot of people really want this to happen, it has a chance. If only a few show serious interest in this provision for the town, there’s no chance. Over to you.

Why is this so very important for Campbeltown?

Just look at the track record of this town in its commitment to the sport. Look at what it brings to the town. Look at how it is restrained from bringing a lot more through the unpredictability of the weather and its impact on the current pitch, with fixture cancellations the order of the day.

The history

Campbeltown and Kintyre has a long history of energetic support for the game.

• In the 1940s there wre no fewer than 7 junior teams playing in the area.
• In the 80s and early 90s Campbeltown was a lively and thriving hub for youth football with 5 full size teams taking part in the local league – under 8s, 11s, 14s and 17s. The 5 teams were made up from different housing schemes in the town: Crosshill, Calton Thistle, Dalaruan Hearts, Longrow ;and the fifth was always a team drawn from the outlying country areas.  South Kintyre and possibly even Tarbert had a team at one point.  Here are some photographs from this era, when football was king.
• This level of interest has since diminished, affected by a falling population, outward economic migration and lack of good modern facilities – like an all weather pitch.
• Back in the 1950s there were audiences in Kintyre Park of over 3,000. Last Saturday, on a lovely day, there was, by today’s standards, a large crown of around 150 to see Campbeltown Boys play Tarbert in an SAFL ties.
• Ten years ago, Campbeltown Pupils AFC (Amateur Football Club)  won the SAFL Premier League. This is the top amateur league on the west coast of Scotland.

The current situation

• Ten years after Campbeltown Pupils AFC victory, the team is struggling in the SAFL Premier First Division, while its peers, Oban Saints AFC are setting the benchmark and are on course to win the SAFL. The provision of an all weather pitch in Oban has seen football revitalised in that town, with the best setup for football in Argyll. A glance at the Oban Saints AFC website shows the awards the club has won in the past year.

• Campbeltown is the only place in Argyll to have two teams competing in the Scottish Amateur Football League (SAFL): Campbeltown Pupils AFC and Campbeltown Boys AFC. Confusingly the boys are men. This team was originally formed to give boys who didn’t make the Campbeltown Pupils AFC team a chance to play in the Amateur League.
• These teams travel, on average, over 3,000 miles a year to play the away League games. They are, by a long way, the most travelled teams in the SAFL.
• There’s also a youth setup – Campbeltown United. They have to travel to the Glasgow area to take part in competitive leagues.

• 300-400 people there play football. The provision of a 3G all weather pitch would increase that, with the restructuring of local leagues to include Tarbert., as it used to do and Lochgilphead.
• There is a summer amateur league which sees 7 teams compete – including one from Ardrishaig and Lochgilphead and 5 from South Kintyre.  In October 2009, to enable the fixture to be played,  this  league had to host its league cup final in OBAN – on a 3G park.
• The two amateur teams, through home ties, bring around 400 players, officials and fans to Campbeltown each year.
• 20-30 volunteers help with coaching, setting up, ground maintenance, washing the team strips and fund raising.

Aspiration and diasppointmnet

Campbeltown aspires to be back up there where Oban is. It could be, if it had the same facilities as its peers – and before its talented young folk lose interest, leave the game and provide no legacy of achievement to attract the generation behind them.

Argyll is short on aspiration. Where it exists – and the hunger to achieve on the pitch still burns in Campbeltown – it deserves every possible support. Nothing has the impact of success.

Instead of the support it works to earn, for some reason – never given and indecipherable – Campbeltown alone was singled out for exclusion from the list of Priority One cases to be provided with an all weather pitch.

South Kintyre Sports Council has had the need for an all weather pitch in its sights for years. Back in the early 1990s, independent consultants reported that while a new sports hall was required, the provision of an all weather pitch was the priority need.

Again in 2004, in Argyll and Bute Council’s Playing Field Strategy, Campbeltown was identified, with others, as a Priority One case for the provision of an all weather pitch. Given the evidence of a real energy for football in the area, it is odd that Campbeltown was singled out for ultimate exclusion from the list, with all of the others given their pitches.

The campaign

The current campaign by the South Kintyre Spots Council began in 2005 and, over the past six months or so, has picked up a lot of the momentum it must demonstrate.

The plan is to look to Sport Scotland to provide funding in a Council-led application in early April 2010, with its inclusion in the Campbeltown CHORD project.

If it is not included it will be left to wait until a new school is built in the town. No one has any idea when that might be but, built in this context, it would be no more than a 2G pitch, not acceptable for official fixtures.

And in the meantime there will be more generations of Kintyre folk lost to the game the area counts its own.

The future – with an all weather pitch

• In terms of the health of the game in the area, the example of the regeneration of interest – and achievement  -  of Oban, after the provision of a 3G all weather pitch, is instructive. Campbeltown would rise to the opportunity of a successful team to support.
• A 3G all weather pitch would enable the revival and development of rugby and shinty in the area, now all but non-existent.
• This number of people brought to the town through visitng teas and fans at home matches is certain to rise significantly since, with an all weather pitch, the visitors could be certain in advance that the games would actually be played. The position at the moment sees cancellation after cancellation at Campbeltown, so visiting teams do not book larger coaches nor recruit their fans to come.
• Scouting would be developed if it could be guaranteed that games would be played – as they would be with an all weather pitch.  This itself would add a buzz to the game in the town and increase the opportunities open to talented youngsters.
• When the Campbeltown-Ballycastle ferry ran, in the dying years of the last millennium, there were exchange matches played with Coleraine and one local lad was asked to go over for a trial. The ferry will open again and with a pitch to support greater participation and rising standards of achievement in the game, the potential for cross-North Channel challenges and opportunities is exciting.

Football is a cool game. Argyll youngsters could do with feeling cool. Football is a vigorous and challenging competitive game. Argyll youngsters would benefit from the self-belief and commitment in competing with intent to win.

The will to win and the stamina to carry on are among the biggest transferable skills there are.

Look at what has happened in Inveraray with the mind-boggling success of the Inveraray & District Pipe Band. – under 5 years old, triple world champions and about to compete at Grade 1, the highest grade in the world, for the first time. And they have no intention of being also-rans. 

They now have two bands and a waiting list from across Argyll longer than those on that list can bear to contemplate.

This could be – should be – Campbeltown and football.

Success at the level Campbeltown can achieve – given the resources the other towns already have and in a game so entwined with the national image, would put a spirit of competition, enterprise and pride smack into the main arteries of the entire area.

Be there tomorrow

Drop in to Campbeltown Town Hall tomorrow (11.00am-7.00pm). Sign your request for an all weather pitch to be adopted by CHORD – and watch Campbeltown kick off.