Supporting sport at the grass roots (From The Northern Echo)

Supporting sport at the grass roots

5:44pm Monday 28th November 2011 in From The Editor's Chair By Peter Barron

THE nicest task of last week was to compere the launch of the charity Future Sport which raises money to give out in grants to sporting youngsters.

With the support of Durham County Cricket Club stars Graham Onions, Scott Borthwick and Ben Stokes, the charity gave out £500 cheques to North-East youngsters involved in a variety of sports.

One of them was Lyndon Longhorne. I know I’ve said this before, but what an inspiration it is to spend time in that young man’s company.

Lyndon, from Crook, County Durham, lost both legs and an arm due to meningitis when he was a baby. He is now fighting for a place in the British Paralympic swimming team.

I picked him up from school and, on the drive to the cricket club, he told me how he gets up at 4am every day except Sundays, and trains for hours before school.

His mum Tammy, who is an inspiration herself, gets up with him every day and drives him all over the country to compete.

I’m a passionate believer in the value of grass roots sport, and Lyndon symbolises why being involved in a charity like Future Sport is so worthwhile.

Lyndon is 16 today and he’s already crammed so much into his young life. Happy birthday, mate – you’re a star.

A REGULAR supply of questionnaires lands on my desk, telling me what readers like and don’t like about the paper.

A recurring theme among the dislikes of late has been our racing pages.

Therefore, some design changes have been made, aimed at making the race-cards easier to read despite limited space.

I hope I’ve backed a winner.

I SPEND so much time at work that the danger of my wife running off with another man has crossed my mind.

Imagine my reaction, therefore, when I rang her mobile last week and it was answered by Irish comedian Jimmy Cricket.

“This is Jimmy Cricket, I’m with your wife, we’re approaching the airport, and we’re about to catch a flight to Barbados,” he said.

Part of my wife’s job involves promoting Darlington Civic Theatre and she was driving Jimmy to BBC Tees so he could plug this year’s pantomime, Cinderella, in which he plays Baron Hardup.

Jimmy’s a lovely, friendly fella and we had a good natter about family life. He’s a fatherof- four, like me.

Come to think of it, that’s why I’m Barron Hardup too.

THERE’S more, as Jimmy Cricket would say...

Every weekday morning, I play The Headline Challenge with Alistair Brownlee on BBC Tees. It involves coming up with a funny headline in the paper and challenging the listeners to beat it.

Points are awarded throughout the week, with double-pointers for film and song titles.

On Friday, I was tempted to go with a Press Association report about ten firefighters being required to free a man who had a particularly delicate part of his anatomy trapped in a metal ring.

The headline might easily have been “Free Willy”. It’s a film title and, therefore, a definite double-pointer, but part of the responsibility of being an editor is knowing where to draw the line.

The outstanding question is: Why on earth did it take ten firefighters?