Quotes
Sir Richard Leese, Leader Manchester City Council
“Events programmes don’t change cities. But, if they’re done in the right way, cultural and sports events can make a significant contribution to social and economic regeneration.”
“There’s a whole host of Olympic cities where any social and economic benefits have been pretty short term.”
“The aim for us was the change the city’s infrastructure and to change the image of Manchester.”
“25 years ago Manchester was a pretty bleak place. The city has changed.”
“The driver for us 25 years ago was jobs, and it’s still jobs 25 years later.”
“Our city events strategy will help us achieve the same objectives of a healthier city, a wealthier city and a happier city.”
“Through sport we will have made a contribution to the economic, social and environmental regeneration of the city.”
Dan, aged 14, from Stretford Grammar School, interviewing Sir Richard Leese at the conference.
Dan is a sports reporter for Supporter to Reporter, a project working with Aim higher students in Trafford, giving young people real life media experience. He was asking Sir Richard about the challenges of delivering four world events in just eight weeks as part of Manchester World Sport 08 – and the social and economic benefits of these events.
Beatriz Garcia, Impact 08, Liverpool University
“Liverpool is breaking the mould as the first city to commission long term research.”
“In all these research areas, Liverpool has been far more ambitious than other events, even the Olympic Games.”
“The idea was to place at the heart of the City of Culture a community-led programme of events.”
“If we want to discuss legacy, we have to understand the evidence first.”
“The issue that’s not resolved yet is what we mean by evidence. We have to go beyond proving the value of cultural events by economic assessment.”
“We have to look beyond the easily measurable factors. It’s the experiences of people that we keep failing to assess.”
Matthew Pike, Executive director, Nova Scarman Group
“I’ve got a real interest in change that sticks.”
“This is a plea for seeing the invisible, and making the invisible visible.”
“Legacy is like the ripples from a stone. What we’re interested in is seeing how the ripples extend out.”
“My great fear is that Liverpool doesn’t have the stamina to stay the course.”
“Liverpool is its own worst enemy and its own best hope.”
“The word ‘legacy’ has this feeling of a dead hand, of big buildings. I’m interested in people, and how they make change for the long term.”
“To achieve change requires knowledge and know-how over the long term – in Liverpool, I fear it isn’t there.”
Norman Hole, Department of Children, Schools and Families
“It’s not enough just to provide funding, we’ve got ensure activities are high quality, achieve outcomes and are attractive to young people.”
“We have to ensure that what we provide is what they want. The best way is to ask them.”
“It is our aspiration that by 2018 young people will shape 25 per cent of local authority activities.”
“It’s no good providing exciting opportunities if young people can’t access them.”
Simon Antrobus, Clubs for Young People
“If you truly want to engage young people in making decisions you can’t just go up to them. It takes time, energy and money to engage them.”
“You need to look to real community leaders in the voluntary sector who do it day in, day out.”
Anne Moyle, Get Hooked on Fishing
“Once you’ve got a young person fishing then you’ve got the time to spend with them.”
Sangita Patel, London Community Sports Network
“If we really want to engage young people in organising events we have to take a risk. They need to learn to take the rough with the smooth – it’s building skills for their lives in the future.”
Christina Coker, Youth Music
“Long term development has to be supported – people can’t just be left to sink or swim.”
“Let the voice of young people come to the fore – it carries more weight than statistics.”
Ian Brady, DCSF
“Lots of local authorities really love to work with the voluntary sector; others are like scared rabbits in the headlights.”
Geoff Newton, Director, Olympic Opportunities, LDA
“We want to make sure the venues on the park work not only in Games time, but also in legacy.”
“We can’t come out the other side of the Games saying it’s a success if we haven’t done something about participation.”
“If we don’t deliver something that all parts of the community feel they have benefited from then we will have failed.”
“If we don’t deliver something the community feels involved in, engaged in, and a genuine sense of ownership of we will have failed.”
“We do not want to deliver another Canary Wharf.”
“We want to be able to hit the ground running after the Games.”
Shaun Dawson, Lee Valley Regional Park Authority
“It won’t be one day Games, next day legacy. There’s a transition period.”
“There will be negative headlines. It’s what we do on the ground that counts.”
“What we don’t want is to be excluding some groups because we’re under financial pressures – it’s quite a challenge.”
Rob Young, North West Development Authority, 2012 coordinator
“The crucial question is, how can we use 2012 to deliver on strategies we’ve already got?’
Paul Bower, coordinator, The Big Opportunity
“The big challenge is one of resources. It’s 20 times the size of the World Cup.”
“This is the most exciting, most challenging, and biggest project anyone of us will ever go through.”
“The lesson from Barcelona is that they had a really clear vision of what sort of city they wanted.”
Dr Adam Brown, Substance
“There is a lot of rhetoric about what events can do but very little evidence that they actually do deliver social and economic benefits.”
“What the 2012 rules about branding says to voluntary and community groups is ‘Back off, you’re not part of this’.”
“If you want to improve social inclusion, work with those people who are already doing it, don’t try to reinvent the wheel.”
“Longer term engagement is the key – it isn’t taking part that matters, it’s what that leads to.”
“If you want the Olympics to regenerate an area for the benefit of everybody then things have to be very different this time.”
“Research needs to be embedded, monitoring and evaluation needs to be integral to an event itself, and there needs to be more honest and open debate where criticism is possible.”
Professor Justin O’Connor, Leeds University
“There is a new cultural politics of sport, based on the idea that fans themselves co-create the values.”
“Football clubs take fan loyalty for granted and see it something they can exploit without any sense of responsibility.”
“There is a democratic cultural deficit around sport and sporting events.”
“The culturalisation of sporting events brings with it a new cultural politics.”
Steve Mannix, London 2012 Cultural Olympiad
“It will be the largest programme of this kind the world has ever seen.”
“The Olympic movement has never worked with the sophistication of our cultural sector.”
“Access and legacy are central to our plans and partnerships.”
“We hope to use the Games as a catalyst but we can’t wave a magic wand and solve all these issues.”
Andrew Ramsey, DCMS
“The intention to deliver a successful legacy has to be there from the start.”
“Legacies are not a happy consequence of events, but part of what they are about.”
“The keys to a successful legacy are a successful event, long-term planning, and the widest involvement of individuals and the community.”
Dave Moutrey, Cornerhouse
“The instrumentalist approach to an event is the death knell of legacy. It’s approaching it from the wrong end of the spectrum.”
“Even in big sporting events there are huge opportunities to engage people, to truly involve them and trust them.”
Josephine Burns, BOP consulting
“We’ve had 20 years of throwing public money at events and we’re still tackling the same issues.”
“Without a much more robust sense of what we mean by it, all this talk about legacy is just cant.”
“Often the change that really happens is not the change we expected. The much more interesting changes are often those which public policy can’t reflect.”
Helen Grdadolnik, CABE
“A lot of people feel they have no say in the regeneration projects that are affecting them and their places.”
Jessie Feinstein, Leap: Confronting conflict
“Sport is not magic. It can bring communities together, but it can also be divisive, violent and reinforce prejudice. It’s important to have significant skills training as well.”
“If you’re working with groups of young people in conflict with each other, the last thing to do is bring them together. You need to do a lot of work first.”
“There’s a fantasy that everyone will become friends when you bring conflicting groups together. Often, if you can get them to walk past each other on the street, that’s success.”
Tiger de Souza, Vinvolved
“We are thinking differently about how to involve young people in volunteering: we are putting young people at the heart of youth volunteering.”
“Talk to young people in the language they want to hear – don’t use the word volunteering, talk about thingks they are interested in.”
“Your event has got to stand out.”
“Event volunteering is a winner.”
Young person involved in V
“My V kicks ass. Every Sunday. Any park. The banter, the goals, the mud, sweat and delight on the team’s faces. They love it … and so do I."
William Gaillard, UEFA director of public affairs
“We want to leave legacies of stadiums that can be used by cities for football and cultural events.”
“The main goal of a country applying to host a major football tournament is modernsiation of its football stadia.”
“There’s no doubt that football has a much beter record than the Olympcis in terms of the continued use of its facilities.”
“The second legacy of future organisations and coutnries will be the enhancement of toruism and the image of the country as a whole.”
“Football has a great record in terms of social integration. It involves all sections of the popuation. It is not an elite event; it inlcudes all classes and ages.”
Phil Smith, Head of Piblic Affairs, FA
“We select venues not just on quality but on the impact they can have on the local economy.”
“If you’re going to create a participation legacy, you have to pre-empt the results – you have to prepare for success.”
“With the 2018 World Cup bid, it’s not what the football world can do for England, but what England can do for the football world.”
“We failed to win the 2006 World Cup because England was isoalted and unloved around the world. Frankly, we were arrogant abot saying we invented the game and you should give us the world cup in thanks.”
“Future World Cups will be won on the basis of legacy.”
Dave Boyle, Deputy Director, Supporters Direct
“Nothing is more needed in English football than unity.”
“The best legacy of 2018 will be a rational and coherent approach to English football.”
“We have to guard against this notion of a sports federation flying into a country from out of space and getting them to change laws to protect their sponsors at the expense of individual rights. It’s like a virus.”
“There are some crazy people out there who really do think you matter less than a brand.”
“Ticket touting is a result of a failure of distribution; it’s a secondary market that exists because the first market has failed.”
Michael Gabriel, German Fan Projects
“Maybe, after the fourth consecutive tournament without fan violence UEFA could reduce the level of security measures just a bit.”
Marcos Alvito, Fluminese University, Brazil
“The World Cup is a circus that lands on a country. It’s like a hurricane and after the hurricane, what’s left?”
The spectacle is being built for TV, and not for fans anymore.”
“What dos it mean to modernise? To modernise means to gentrify.”
“The legacy of the World Cup in 2014 will be a commercialised, gentrified, sanitised, exclusive game.”
