Sporting chance

Published on 30/07/2012 00:00

The greatest legacy of the London Olympic Games would be the reversal of the disastrous decline in school sport caused by the toxic 1960s ideology that all must be winners.

Combined with the loss of facilities as politicians sold off playing fields, it led to a sad decline in state school sports culture and a vast rise in the numbers of obese children. It would give boys from deprived areas and impoverished immigrant backgrounds the male role models absent from their lives and help prevent them falling into criminality.

In the 1950s, there was seamless progression from state school playing fields to university and international athletics teams as well as careers in professional sport. It is depressing for sportsmen like me who trod that path half a century ago to see just how high a proportion of our 2012 Olympians attended fee-paying schools.

Dr John Cameron

Howard Place,
St Andrews, Fife