Watling Boys Club - A question for Matthew Offord

PMQs 3 Nov 2010 Matthew Offord hon gent from Barnet Bugle on Vimeo.

First off, many thanks to Dan Hope for posting this clip. Whatever you may think of Dan, he's one of the few Barnet Tories not to skulk in the shadows.

Anyway on to the clip of Matthew Offord at PMQ's. I have extremely mixed feelings about this intervention. Firstly I fully agree that we need clubs like "The Watling Club" (to give it it's proper name) or "Watling Boys Club" (to use the old name). I applaud Offord for raising the subject and he's right to raise it.

Before we get too carried away with all of this, lets consider the actual history of Watling Boys Club and why the building is shut. The club was supposed to move to Burnt Oak leisure centre. An upstairs area was designated for the club. Sadly the Council (of which Matthew Offord was Deputy leader) reneged on the deal. As  result, Watling Club, which used to be a premier football and boxing club, found it virtually impossible to function. Wheras before it provided an outlet for the energies of local boys from one of the poorer parts of Barnet, it slowly started to die. Spurs great Steve Perryman was one of the graduates from the Watling Football team. The team was still a force, but there was no infrastructure to support youth football.

As a result, last seasons under 16's were the last team to come through. They were Harrow and District under 16 league champions last year -

http://www.football.mitoo.co.uk/LeagueTab.cfm?TblName=Matches&DivisionID=10324&LeagueCode=HYFL2009

Many of these boys have gone on to well established non league clubs. It looked for all the world as if the club would die last May. A group of local parents then approached the club in 2008 to see if they could help form and under 8 team. This was successfully established and we now have under 10, 9 & 8 teams up and running. I know all this as my son was one of the boys in that under 8 team. It is abundantly clear to anyone who has been involved that there is a huge need for the team. I regularly drive 4 of the boys to away matches, as do other parents.

What help have we had from the Council? Very little. We have no clubhouse, we use the Burnt Oak leisure centre as do many other clubs on a similar basis, boys turn up and they go home again. It's all very well for the Matthew Offords of this world to ask questions at PMQ's. How much better would it have been if he'd given the club some help when he was at the Council and actually in a position to change things.

As with many youth football teams, they run on the goodwill of parents, who go out of their way to make sure things happen. Sadly clubs often fold when a hard working parent moves, gets ill or loses interest. In his answer, Mr Cameron said that he'd set up a new £100 million fund to support clubs like Watling. I immediately thought "hang on, that is less than the turnover of a middle ranking premiership club" with maybe 40 people on the staff. Not quite so impressive when you look at it like that. Of course it's a start and in this climate it's £100 million more than it could be. If it is properly directed, it could make a big difference.

Barnet has an atrocious record of supporting football. Watling FC isn't the only club to have problems with the Council. Barnet FC have been rebuffed in favour of Saracens Rugby Club, despite having a far stronger association with Barnet. Hendon Town FC have been forced out of their ground as have Edgware Town FC.
Local Conservatives even put out an election leaflet in Mill Hill criticising Kentish Town FC, who play at Chase Lodge for planning to put up a clubhouse for a hundred or so people. Why is a 10,000 seat stadium fine for Rugby, but not for Football?

Anyway at the start of this blog, I said I had a question for Mr Offord. It's this - How much of Mr Camerons £100,000,000 will be winging it's way to "The Watling Club" and when can we see some decent facilities for the boys my son plays football with every week.