DENMARK

Last weekend I attended an U13 tournament at the National Badminton Centre in Milton Keynes. The Danish U13 squad played England and comprehensively won 6-0.

Denmark has been the leading European badminton nation for as long as I can remember. During the event I just happened to stand next to one of Denmark’s elite coaches in charge of their U9, U11 and U13 squads. It seemed an ideal opportunity to try and find out how Denmark has been so successful in developing young talent.

First of all I asked about the standards for coaching in Denmark?
There are eight levels for badminton coaches. If you achieve level eight you can then study for as master’s qualification which takes 18 months to become an elite national coach. In England there are only three levels for badminton coaches.

Young badminton players from each region of Denmark are invited to train with one of their elite coaches. It is mandatory that the young players are accompanied by their regional coaches. This enables the elite coaches to train the young players but also their coaches.

Building a coordinated national coaching system across the whole of Denmark, where the most qualified coaches are passing on their knowledge and training techniques to the young players and their coaches.

Next I asked what Danish elite coaches look for in young badminton players.

There first priority is gymnastic ability. Can they walk on their hands? Perform back flips? Run in a straight line?

Training sessions concentrate of developing speed of movement. Very high intensity routines for say one minute, combined with longer stamina building routines lasting up to five minutes. One of the ideas behind this is to educate your mind and body to become familiar with performing at a high intensity, representative of the average length of rallies in badminton.

A typical two hour training session would devote 45 minutes on movement routines.

Development priority for young players in Denmark;

1. Gymnastic ability
2. Speed of movement
3. Racket skills

Movement is the key for young badminton players. Speed of footwork in particular.

Denmark’s results speak for themselves across Europe. They have a pool of approximately 300,000 players compared with England’s 970,000. They are very open to helping other European nations develop their young players and coaches to help Europe compete with Asian countries.

I wonder if Badminton England will be giving them a call?
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ONCE A WEEK

Sport England recently announced their latest ‘once a week participation figures for each funded sport’.

Please note these figures from the Active People Survey (APS) are usually run on a twelve month rolling basis from October to October. As we are only part way through 2013, the APS7 figures represent a twelve month period from April’12 to April’13.

Here are the ‘once a week participation’ figures for Badminton.

APS1 (Oct 05–Oct 06) – 516,000

APS2 (Oct 07-Oct 08) – 535,000

APS3 (Oct 08-Oct 09) – 539,400

APS4 (Oct 09–Oct 10) – 520,900

APS5 (Oct 10-Oct 11) – 510,300

APS6 (Oct 11-Oct 12) – 544,200

APS7 (Apr 12-Apr 13) – 499.000

From these figures you can see that fewer people now play badminton once a week in 2012/13 compared with 2005/06.

There has been a substantial reduction during the last and first quarter of 2012-13.

Out of 29 funded sports Badminton’s results were 26 th out of 29. Meaning there were only three other sports who recorded worse results for ‘once a week participation’ for the period April 2012 – April 2013.

The main funding bodies of Sport England and UK Sport base their allocation on performance at major championships and increased participation.

Badminton England may believe in their own spin as success but a large reduction in funding of £950,000 per year for the next four years from Sport England & UK Sport coupled with a substantial reduction of once a week participation figures for badminton in 2012/13 paints a different picture.

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SURVIVAL RACKET CENTRE

If you read Courtside, which is basically a PR magazine for Badminton England, you may have read about the astonishing increase in BE membership as described by Chief Executive Adrian Christy, an increase from 40,000 to 130,000 within the last four years. He tries to qualify this figure by implying he may have simply totalled all of the participation data from all of the recreational schemes together, instead of just comparing the usual BE club membership figures. Which have remained pretty static for the past decade at approximately 40,000 to 50,000.

Is there an independent assessment of how well badminton is doing under the management of the current BE board? Well yes there is. We have just started a new funding period 2013–2017, and all sports are assessed for their success or failure in performances at major championships and for increasing participation and growing talent in their respective sports. Badminton has received a combined funding allocation of 23.9 million from Sport England and UK Sport for the next four years. Which on paper looks a very healthy sum, until you compare it with the previous four years funding allocation of 27.7 million, leaving a shortfall of 3.8 million.

Whilst other sports have received more funding, some have seen even bigger reductions. But there is no doubt about it, when you look at the money, badminton has been a loser. Does this reduced funding represent a verdict on the leadership of Christy and the BE board?

How do you fill a Badminton black hole of 950,000 per year? It is difficult to attract new sponsors to badminton as it is rarely broadcast on TV. Increasing members will generate extra income but unlikely to make much of a dent in the deficit. Which is why the only game in town is to build a much larger badminton centre in Milton Keynes with new commercial partners such as the Lawn Tennis Association and with the potential to build extra revenue streams from holding other sporting / leisure events.
It could be described as a survival centre for Badminton England. They also know leisure centres are going to struggle for funding from local councils up and down the country, which may well have repercussions on future participation numbers as facilities become under pressure. So why not build your own leisure / racket centre?
The alternative would be to dramatically cut the staffing levels at Badminton England to reduce expenditure.

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JENNY WALLWORK WALKS OUT

Five times national champion, Commonwealth silver and bronze and European bronze medal winner Jenny Wallwork aged 26, resigns from Badminton England's GB performance programme.
Here's what she has to say..........

"insecure, untrusting and incapable - leadership at Badminton England"

"It was a case of jumping off what felt like a sinking ship"

"I think the sport is being led by people who have a vision and unfortunately have no interest in what the athletes think"

Heat of the moment remarks? Or do her parting shots hold any truths?
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RED ARMY

Will the Red Army change the image of badminton?

Forget nuclear missiles. Russia's military arsenal will soon be bristling with badminton rackets.

Hoping to keep soldiers and recruits in fighting form without great expense, the Defence Ministry plans to buy 10,000 badminton rackets and tens of thousands of shuttlecocks next year.

"Playing badminton uses the same muscles as throwing grenades, knives or other objects," says head of the ministry's physical preparation department, Colonel Alexander Shchepelev.

"That's why this sport is very good for all servicemen without exception."

"Watching the shuttle will be particularly good practice for snipers and riflemen."

"Following the shuttlecock trains the eye muscles, strengthens the cardiovascular system and develops reaction speed."

Sport complexes at seven facilities for Russian draftees have ten marked-out badminton courts each, and military bases will also receive rackets and shuttlecocks.

This is what badminton needs a tougher image. Where Badminton England and other governing bodies have failed for years, lets hope the Red Army can launch badminton in a new direction.
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WRONG BRANDING?

Did Adrian Christy get the branding for Badminton England wrong?

At the time, Adrian explained in articles written for Badminton England’s magazine and with e-mail correspondence to me explaining how he felt badminton had a ‘good image’ and wanted to communicate badminton as a friendly, fun and inexpensive game.

Badminton England developed a tag line – ‘play it, love it, live it’

I expressed my concerns to Adrian, saying how I believed Badminton had a very poor image and BE needed to say something specific, factual, about badminton that would start to address it’s image as a ‘soft – tip tap game’. Rather than use a vague marketing line.

My thinking was to use a line based around ‘badminton the world’s fastest racket sport’.

I had conducted some research whilst travelling in the UK and asked people how they would describe badminton and there reaction when I mentioned it was the world’s racket sport. I found most people were unaware of this and very surprised to learn abut badminton’s dynamic qualities.

Even after several discussions and a meeting with BE’s Commercial Director I couldn’t find a way to change their marketing strategy for badminton.

I developed a range of ideas which I initially used for t-shirts with various images all using ‘the World’s fastest racket sport’ line. These ideas were forwarded to Badminton England and Badminton Europe.

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MY TROPHIES

Look at these couple of beauties. I’d like to meet the person who designed them.

I wonder how the thought process began?

'Err we need a badminton trophy……well that’ll be shuttles, rackets, nets……...
why not stick in a medal too….arr problem there’s not enough room for two big rackets…….don’t worry just use a small one instead'

You’ll need the negotiating powers of the United Nations to get these displayed on the mantelpiece at home.

Fingers crossed for 'less is more' next season.

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