Sport

Sports Officer Emma Bird plans to make Uni prioritise sport

By Ross Turner
Published: 29/04/2010

Next year’s Sports Officer Emma Bird has vowed a shake-up of the University’s sports system if the findings of a review by current officer Kate Rickard show that sport is being undermined.

There has long been questions about the amount of money invested in sport at the University and Bird has her own doubts about the opportunities currently being offered to students.

She said: “We have to ask very big questions like why Hallam’s sports budget is so much bigger than ours? We always do better in the BUCS rankings than they do - imagine what we could do with a bigger budget.

“It seems, too, that we are always working against uSport rather than with them. I want to change this. Why is the gym so expensive? Surely a cheaper gym would be beneficial to our athletes.”

Rickard’s review will analyse everything in Sheffield student sport and make recommendations accordingly.

Encouragingly for Bird, the new registrar at the University has made it known that he is very interested in sport and prepared to push the case for more investment in the future.

Bird also said that she would be open to the idea of returning Varsity finals day to Abbeydale, depending on student opinion.

“I loved Abbeydale but today was fantastic. Hillsborough was 100 times better than I had anticipated. Perhaps the students should decide what venue the final is held in, possibly through online voting. It will have to be looked in to.”

The future Sports Officer highlighted her main aim next year as getting more students to participate in student sport, in terms of spectating as much as playing.

This would include a major increase in promotion for everyday BUCS games, which rarely get a decent turn-out from students.

On this year’s Varsity, Bird was understandably disappointed but also proud of the University’s achievements.

She said: “I’m absolutely gutted. It is strange that we are better than Hallam in BUCS but not in Varsity - it is down to the rivalry, but also the fact that Hallam often don’t submit teams that they know will be comprehensively beaten, such as in table tennis. That is the Hallam way - it is just how they do things and we all know that by now.

“Kate has done an immense job this year and hopefully we can keep moving forward and build on what she has achieved.

“To make the final day of Varsity such a success when the choice of venue had so many doubters was not easy; hopefully next year we can match this.”

Rate this article