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Sporting villagers restrained by political madness
By Donald Trelford
(Filed: 23/05/2005)
Cuddington is a village near Northwich in the heart of the Cheshire countryside that contains a yoghurt factory. Local recreational facilities consist of two full-size football pitches and tennis courts and a children's playground. The footballers change in a deteriorating prefab and there is a run-down hut for the youth club and boy scouts.
The enterprising villagers set about fund-raising for a new village community centre, properly designed and costed. The football coaches went on courses to obtain the qualifications needed to enable the club to acquire Football Foundation status.
Then they applied for support from the National Lottery and went successfully through all the rounds bar one, falling at the final hurdle. They were 'disqualified' because - wait for it - there was not sufficient "ethnic community mix" in the village.
I can see the case for directing Lottery funds towards sports complexes in deprived inner cities to keep youths of all races off the streets and away from crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour. But to apply the ethnic test so rigidly to areas outside the inner cities, where the population is over 90 per cent white, is not only political correctness gone mad, but likely to stoke up racial resentment.
In effect, young people in places like Cuddington are being disadvantaged simply because they are white. My source says: "The village has hardly any non-white residents, so what can it do - import some clandestine asylum seekers?"
By Donald Trelford
(Filed: 23/05/2005)
Cuddington is a village near Northwich in the heart of the Cheshire countryside that contains a yoghurt factory. Local recreational facilities consist of two full-size football pitches and tennis courts and a children's playground. The footballers change in a deteriorating prefab and there is a run-down hut for the youth club and boy scouts.
The enterprising villagers set about fund-raising for a new village community centre, properly designed and costed. The football coaches went on courses to obtain the qualifications needed to enable the club to acquire Football Foundation status.
Then they applied for support from the National Lottery and went successfully through all the rounds bar one, falling at the final hurdle. They were 'disqualified' because - wait for it - there was not sufficient "ethnic community mix" in the village.
I can see the case for directing Lottery funds towards sports complexes in deprived inner cities to keep youths of all races off the streets and away from crime, drugs and anti-social behaviour. But to apply the ethnic test so rigidly to areas outside the inner cities, where the population is over 90 per cent white, is not only political correctness gone mad, but likely to stoke up racial resentment.
In effect, young people in places like Cuddington are being disadvantaged simply because they are white. My source says: "The village has hardly any non-white residents, so what can it do - import some clandestine asylum seekers?"
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