It wasn’t to be for England in the FIFA Men’s World Cup. Finishing third was
the best result for the team since 1966, but it still felt like a big missed
opportunity for that generation of players.
Elsewhere in elite international
sport, England’s women’s cricketers also fell short in the T20 World Cup,
coming up against a formidable Australia in the final, but there has been
better news too. Staying with cricket, after a disappointing Test series against
New Zealand (and the drama surrounding Ben Stokes), the men’s T20 and One
Day International teams found some overdue form against India.
And in
athletics, at the Diamond League meeting in London, Josh Kerr broke the
men’s mile world record, which had stood since 1999. It was a phenomenal
run, and a reminder of the long tradition of success that this country has at
that classic distance, reaching back to the first sub-four minute mile by Roger
Bannister in 1954.
The last Brit to hold the men’s mile world record before Josh Kerr was the
North East’s own Steve Cram, back in 1985. The Jarrow Arrow’s career began
at the grass roots, with school athletics and then at Jarrow & Hebburn
Athletics Club, encouraged and coached by volunteers from the community.
It’s from that kind of background that talented sports people get identified and
then nurtured – those volunteers deliver the opportunities to participate
(which is the most important opportunity of all) and then to develop, and then
sometimes really excel. There’s plenty of that happening here in Sedgefield!
