After interviewing the President of our own Lacrosse Club here at Royal Holloway for our previous print issue, I widened my enquires to find out if, and how, Lacrosse is being taught across the State Sector.
My researching disappointingly led me to largely unsurprising conclusions, Lacrosse is mostly not taught in any developed manner within the State Sector. When held up against the greatly funded and structured tournaments and trainings of Private School Pupils, the pop-up P.E sessions most commonly seen in the State Sector do not
seem to stand up to scrutiny.
There is, however, exceptions to this generalisation. A key one being found in the unassuming market town of Newbury in West Berkshire. While conducting my research a key school that came up was St Bartholomew’s School in Newbury. Unlike many other State Schools, it seemed St Bartholomew’s had a developed Lacrosse Club that had operated at the school for many years. After reaching out to the school, I was lucky enough to speak with Mr R Wilson who, while being a Mathematics and Business teacher, is responsible for running the Lacrosse Club at St Bartholomew’s School. I was intrigued to know how he came into running the club and having such a passion for the Sport, he then explained to me it was it time at university where is passion for Lacrosse began. Wilson explained how when he started playing Lacrosse at the University of York in 2014, he found ‘it was such a great environment, because particularly with boys Lacrosse, where it is not well established, there was a real opportunity to start at a similar level to others.’ and when he ‘started running the club, there was a real opportunity for individuals not involved in ‘mainstream’ sports to try something new.’After graduating from York, it is clear Wilson took his passion for the sport into his career in teaching, developing the Lacrosse Club at St Bartholomew’s. I asked what it was he enjoyed about running the club and he explained how, ‘Running Lacrosse has given me an opportunity to share everything I love about Lacrosse with the pupils, to be able to do my part in growing the game. I have had students that are brand new to Lacrosse, and to sports in general, that have found a real passion and even join the local Phoenix Lacrosse Club, set up to be able to help St Bart’s compete with other schools’.
Running the Lacrosse Club at St Bartholomew’s School has, however, not come without it’schallenges. I wondered how running a Lacrosse a Club without the funding a Fee-Paying School would offer differed to that run in the Private Sector, Wilson explained how, ‘There are many challenges that we face in state school. From my old school, where I started the Lacrosse club, we had access to old, wooden sticks. No goals or no designated field. The funding in state schools for activities outside the curriculum is very limited and with the start-up costs of Lacrosse being high, this makes it a challenge to help schools getting started.’
He was, however, optimistic about the offerings at St Bartholomew’s, discussing how ‘At St Bart’s we are in a very fortunate position where Lacrosse is on our curriculum, and we have fantastic resources. I have found the main challenges for us is the volume of training that private schools receive, the timing of the games, and also the travel. Games are often played midweek or on Saturday’s, therefore not allowing the school to help’ and explaining
how many of the students have gone on to achieve great feats within the sport, ‘getting involved with international trials and Lacrosse camps’.
As someone with first-hand experience with the challenges that can occur operating Lacrosse Clubs in the State Sector, I asked Wilson what more we would like to see England Lacrosse and national sports governing bodies do to support the growth of the sport. He explained how ‘Funding into state sector for schools without the resources will help
to grow the game and give other schools the opportunity to get involved in such an incredible sport. This will help to give schools the opportunity to compete with other schools and therefore grow the game.’
Wilson acknowledged as well how, without teachers with knowledge of the game, it is difficult to grow the sport, ‘I have noticed that Lacrosse is often in schools where there are teachers that have exposure to Lacrosse. Therefore, it makes it tricky, as teachers will want to be teacher their sports. Being able to find teachers that do have experience of Lacrosse, that would be willing to start a club in their schools would make a huge impact.’ Overall, he was, however, optimistic about the future of Lacrosse within the State Sector, ‘Hopefully with more teachers being involved, we can start to open a link between schools, to be able to set up games more locally, or a state school competition to be able to expose our pupils to the fantastic game.’ It is clear that, while the State-Sector is undoubtedly disadvantaged when it comes to Lacrosse, there are individuals passionate about the Sport and driving it from a grassroots level. With Lacrosse on track to enter the Olympic Games in LA 2028, could this perhaps be the decade that puts Lacrosse, and widened participation in the Sport, on the map?
Image Credit: Issy Trapnell Hoyle