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Sports Personalities Of The Borough

The interviews below (carried out in 2005) are shown in full to highlight the hard work that people have put into the community. Hopefully this may give others some motivation to get off the sofa and get involved in playing / coaching sport!

• Read the interview with Ron Campbell
• Read the interview with Steven Connor
• Read the interview with Mark Earle

Ron Campbell
Ron is an experienced rugby coach, based at Camberley Rugby club. He has helped Surrey Heath put together mixed and girls rugby teams for the annual Surrey Youth Games in Guildford since the Surrey Youth Games started 6 years ago.
This year, Ron was a team manager for the younger children Tag Team, and out of all eleven Boroughs in Surrey, he managed to lead the team to take top honours.

Interview
First of all, congratulations on your success at the Youth Games 2004. Your team was fantastic, and it was great that they picked up the mixed tag rugby trophy!

Q. A lot of hard work went into this year's Youth Games. When did you start the training and how did you finally select the final team for the day?
A. We were very lucky that there were a lot of talented boys and girls at the right age group; several have been playing rugby for over five years at Camberley RFC. However a third of the squad had not played regular rugby before, but were selected after showing much promise at the Surrey Heath inter school tag rugby tournament. A large squad was invited to attend several training sessions and the eventual squad was selected from them. That was the hardest job - there were so many good players that we could have easily entered two competitive teams, but some youngsters and parents were disappointed.

Q. You have done very well at the games every year - what do you attribute to your success?
A. Enjoyment, good basic skills and teamwork are the main requirements for any team sport. Children especially need to enjoy their sport and need to play for their own gratification, and not that of the coach or parents. Making it fun, and enjoying playing as well as winning, is a key factor.

Q. Are you confident you can repeat this next year?
A. Unfortunately I will be moving onto an older group next year and will be passing the tag coaching duties to someone else. I have enjoyed the last couple of years but other coaches need to have the opportunity to do the same.

Q. Who were the stars of the team?
A. It may seem a cop out to say they were all stars, but there was so little between the more experienced players and the newer ones, who fitted in so well, that they were quite hard to spot. They all put in maximum effort and played unselfishly. It was a delight to watch, unless you were with the opposition.

Q. Were there any main rivals amongst the other boroughs competing at the games?
A. It seemed that we were having it all our way in our pool, but there was another team in the other pool doing the same. I recognised many of the players who played for rugby clubs. It was quite evident that they had not watched any of our games by the confident comments of their supporters as the team walked onto the pitch for the final. This confidence grew even more vocal when they scored two quick tries, but there was no bickering and heads did not drop on the Surrey Heath team. A reply of three of our tries dampened the volume a little. At half time the score was four all. The second half saw a magnificent display of flowing rugby, the opposition didn't have a clue which way the ball was going from a series of switch and loop moves, our young players looked in a different league which was reflected in the final score of 10-5.

Q. Did you get a lot of help/support from the parents - training/transport?
A. It was nice to see the parents staying and watching the training sessions and games, a good little community spirit grew, and several of the new players continued and joined Camberley RFC.

Q. How has the year been for Camberley Rugby club? What have been your highlights?
A. The adult first team are not having a lot of success this season, but the ladies, girls and youth sections are doing very well. I coach the under 12s team, who are doing well. They have won all ten games so far and only conceded two tries. They are a great bunch of kids who have developed socially as well physically and are a delight to be associated with.

Q. You do a lot of work with schools within the community. If any schools or children are interested in taking up rugby what should they do, and who should they contact?
A. We are a family rugby club with a strong community ethos; we cater for boys and girls from 5 years and upwards. What I like about rugby is that it is one of the few team sports that have something for all abilities and sizes. At the youngest level they play tag, which is the non-contact version of rugby and skills are added on each year until they play the 15-a-side game at 13 years old.

Our clubhouse is at Watchetts Park and we train and play on Sundays for 10am -12pm, September to May. Just pop down to watch or call me on 07973 600373.

Many thanks, Ron!


Steven Connor
Steven is an enthusiastic athlete who began training at Camberley Athletics Club from a young age.
Steven competed in the Youth Games for athletics and badminton teams but is now too old to compete in the games which is aimed at 5 -15 year olds.
Using his great passion for sport, Steven began to attend coaching and official courses (within Active Surrey) and last year completed his level one athletics coaching award. He also received a special mention as one of the most competent and professional young officials at the Surrey Youth Games 2004.

Interview
First of all, congratulations on your success at the Youth Games. You received a special mention as an outstanding young official of the games - well done!

Q. How did you hear about the Youth Games?
A. I heard about the games years ago from my P.E teacher and coach Laura White when I went to Crawley Ridge and from my athletics club, Camberley AC. I heard about the games from home, as since the first SYG my mum has been involved and she also helped to get the first Surrey Heath athletic team into the games.

Q. Before becoming an official, did you take part in any of the sports? If so what, and did you enjoy it?
A. I did do a lot of sport before l was an official such as athletics and cross-country, which I competed in and still do at Surrey County level. I have won 2 medals for Surrey Heath at the games - one gold in athletics and a silver in badminton as I play a lot of badminton at a club standard.

Q. Do you prefer being an official, or taking part in the games?
A. I have to say I love taking part and competing as it give me a boost as I love playing sport. I do really like being an official as it is different and really cool to see sport in a way I wouldn't normally see it from. Its also something new and interesting.

Q. Will you continue to officiate at this year's games?
A. Definitely, I will always try to be involved in the games as I think it is great fun and really important to get the community together with sport. I love being an official/coach and the people around me make it easier to do and fun. They are a great crowd.

Q. What advice would you give to any young people who would like to get involved in becoming an official/coach?
A. If you get the opportunity to coach or officiate I would take it, as it's a new and fun experience. My advice if you are is to be positive, cool and just enjoy it.

Q. Do you hope to use your coaching and official experience to build on as a future career?
A. Definitely as I probably want to be a P.E teacher in the future, where all this would come in handy, and it's all a great experience. In the future I would like to be a coach at an athletic club and to carry on my officiating to a high standard when I have more time but I am busy at the moment with my studies and my sport.

Many thanks Steven!

Mark Earle

Interview

Q. A lot of hard work went into this year's Youth Games. When did you start the training and how did you finally select the final team for the day?
A. I selected the team from the trials that we held earlier in the year and from the squad we formed we held training sessions every Thursday evening.

Q. You have done very well at the Games every year. What do you attribute your success?
A. There are some strong clubs within the Borough and in fact even some of the clubs outside the Borough have players that either live or go to school in Surrey Heath.

Q. Are you confident you can repeat this next year?
A. I would hope that we can improve upon our results. The club is building a very strong support structure with parents and coaches for the children that train here.

Q. Who were the stars of the team?
A. Anybody who has the courage to compete in a judo competition will always be stars to me. However although the level was pretty even our best results were as follows:

Gold
Hannah Browne, Mathew Carrol and Dominic Zu Verl.
Silver
Toby Lord, Jane Bird and Sean Cuff.
Bronze
Aleisha Lasiewicz, Zara Walker, Robyn Hennessey, Emogene Howard-Kaye, James Moss and Aaron West.

Q. Were there any main rivals amongst the other boroughs competing at the games?
A. As I said before, throughout Surrey there are some strong clubs that consistently produce young up and coming judoka (Judo Fighters). Each year I look at the clubs within each borough to assess where the stronger children are coming from.

Q. Did you get a lot of help/support from the parents - training/transport?
A. I have always been lucky with the support I have been given by parents from within the club. At the moment the support has never been better and I believe we will see great results next near at the youth games.

Q. How has the year been for Camberley Judo Club? What have been your highlights?
A. It has been a mixed year with some ups and downs. Firstly, John Buchanan has returned to Scotland. John won a bronze medal in the World Championships in 2001. He has trained full time at Camberley since he was sixteen years old and decided to retire and return home partly due to his father's ill health.
Karina Bryant had two operations since the World Championships last year where she won a bronze and silver. Although with almost no training she managed to win silver in the European championships this year, she failed to live up to the expectations of a medal at the Olympic Games.
Rachel Wilding qualified for the Olympic Games at the Europeans this year and although she put up a great performance was unable to produce a medal at the Games. Samantha Lowe and Gareth Carder have just returned from the European - 23 Championships. Sam won a bronze medal and Gareth Carder got seventh place.

I am delighted with the improvements of our children's section with Sam Hughes making the Cadet squad for next year and Aidan Jones and James Browne winning their first ever national medals.

Q. You do a lot of work with schools within the community. If any schools or children are interested in taking up judo, or judo lessons what should they do, and who should they contact?
A. There are many schools in the local area that we run classes for. All the schools that we run have qualified coaches through the British Judo Association who are the governing body for Judo in this Country. We also use their authentic grading system so any child that grades with us have a grade that is recognised throughout the World.

If anybody is interested in judo they can either get the school to contact us or contact us directly at;

Camberley Judo Club, Deer Rock Road, Camberley, Surrey
Tel: 01276 28185.

Find out more information
To find out about coaching courses/workshops in the area look on www.activesurrey.com Opens in a new window

Arts & Leisure telephone 01276 707338 or email leisure.services@surreyheath.gov.uk