Although we are a nation of sport lovers, for a lot of us that tends to mean watching sport rather than playing it. We want this to change and have set ourselves a target to get two million people more active by 2012 – a million through sport and a million through physical activity.

I was prisons minister before I started this job, so I’ve seen how sport can change people’s lives. Where’s the busiest place in a prison? The gym. Sport can help raise self-esteem and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

The tremendous success of our Olympians and Paralympians in Beijing can play a key role in inspiring people to take up sport. Sporting Champions, a scheme run by Sport England, brings world-class athletes face-to-face with young people.

We’re also changing sport in schools, moving away from stereotyping, where boys play rugby, cricket and football and girls play netball and hockey, by offering a wider range of sports. Ninety per cent of young people are now doing two hours of sport a week in school, and we’re now trying to get that up to five hours, across a range of sports.

But that five hours can’t all be done in school time. Sports clubs will have to get involved, and we’ll need more coaches too.

Coaching is a really interesting area: while we want to keep the existing band of volunteer coaches, I think we should have a system similar to the US where, if you are a coach of a college team, you are a key member of society and enjoy a reasonable income. What we are trying to do through Sports Coach UK is to enable people to train to be coaches at higher levels so that coaching is seen as a proper profession.

The Active Places website is a fantastic resource: log on and find out what’s happening in your area in 11 different sports; plus there are loads of other opportunities you can tap into. The site has details of 75,000 facilities.

Through all these measures we are raising the whole profile of sport. We need to have competition at all levels, from the elite right through to the grassroots.

It’s never been easier to take up sport. Just give it a try – this is one New Year’s resolution that you won’t want to give up on.

Source: Read Full Article