My [Educational & Excellence] Pursuit...

This blog is one very different from the previous ones, in that it is (extremely) unconventional (much more than usual), but it is also another side of me that, somewhat sadly, most people do not know. I will admit that this blog will be of niche interest, but I wish to share it with those people who truly wish to understand a little more about what the hell I want to do in my life and why. In recent times I have realised that my work, and what I study is something that I rarely talk about in person. My studies have always been personal to me. What follows is a whistle stop tour of my educational background, some of if I admit is rather akin to 'blowing wind up my arse' and some just plain self-embarrassment . But a good friend of mine once told me that "whatever you do in life, you should always sell it". I guess to some degree this is my sell. The later part of the blog outlines my future intentions of study, which as I said, you may, or may not find interesting. Without any further adue, lets go!

My roots come from a quaint public school called St Faiths, of which I was, for all intensive purposes, an average pupil. At the age of 11, my mother made one of the biggest decisions in her life to send me to a state school. Her decision was primarily based on finances. I attended Cottenham Village College (CVC) of which was it was decisively average. Both schools could not be any further apart in terms of upbringing, background, expectation, opportunity and attitude. They were polar opposites, and I took a lot away from both. To illustrate this, Scott fondly tells a story of our first day at Cottenham Village College whereby I walked into school with a 'bowl' cut hairstyle and a brief case. Yes...a brief case. Social suicide, yes, but to me not having a briefcase at my previous school in itself was social suicide. As I said, polar opposites. I recall coming back from Cottenham in year 10 (15 years old) when my mum and I were discussing my likely GCSE grades results which were still pending at the time. Of which I expected, and was predicted a series of Bs and under. My mother being the savvy business women she is, along with her usually effective psychological ploys, gave me a proposition. She said ‘Mat if you get 5 As I will give you £500’. This was an empty proposition, in that she felt her money was well and truly safe. To be truthful, I also agreed. Thus by results day, I had practically forgot our little agreement. To my surprise my results were considerable better than I ever expected, and I made the quota mum had set. Rather admirably she kept her promise, and I brought my first laptop off my Nanna with the money, which I would use at Sixth Form. At secondary school I had no idea of what I wanted to do, and I honestly had no real ambition to go far in life. I had no idea what life was (I still don’t).I was very much the sheep in the flock, and subsequently went to Hills Road Sixth Form purely on the basis ‘it was the thing to do’. It is. My family, as a whole, are far more vocational in their pursuits. I know a number of labourers, plumbers, painters, electricians and so on. None of my extended family ever pursued the world of academia, and left as soon as it was legally possible. Therefore, I had no form of expectation, yet no form of instilled ambition. So when I went to sixth form I held a basic philosophy of ‘do what you enjoy’. I had no idea what I wanted to do, and thus the only form of rationale I could base my decision on was enjoyment. I asked myself what was the fundamental things I really enjoy. I studied what I enjoyed, Philosophy, Business Studies, Psychology, Media Studies and Physical Education. You know what... I loved it. The subjects to this day intrigue, interest and enthral me constantly, and I would have words with anyone who thinks otherwise ;).The decision of university very much took a similar rational. If the decision of 4 out of 25-30 subjects was hard enough, the decision of over 120 universities with countless courses was a far greater one. I stuck, rather naively perhaps, to the same philosophy of what I enjoy. I loved Physical Education and I loved Business more than anything, and on paper I was pretty good at both. I chose to go to Loughborough University and read BSc in Sports and Leisure Management (Phyiscal Education and Business).What I studied, and still continue to study is often misunderstood. It is an interdisciplinary course primarily drawing on the principles of business such as economics, law, human resources, finance and accounting ,marketing, strategic management and so on, in addition to more broader disciplines such as sociology, psychology and policy which we often dabble in. People often think of you as a ‘sports scientist’, of which is incorrect. I study business. It just happens that my business course is rather interesting, and tailored by applying business theory to an industry. I do not intend to run Greens Health and Fitness, nor do I run around a field.

Once I had finished by BSc, and narrowly missing out of a 1:0 Class degree (I tried, I really did), I was the 2^nd in my entire extended family to achieve a degree qualification of any kind. Of which I must note my awesome older cousin Nicola Boak, who I believe very much pioneered and paved the way. I took and take a lot of confidence from her. She studied Equine Management at Cirencester, and did very well, of which I admire her for greatly, more than I ever could say and more than she ever realises.

The plot thickens when I applied to do a PhD the following academic year on a whim. It was in July when I saw the advertisement for a PhD at Sheffield Hallam, looking at Sport Policy. I would have ignored it, hadn’t it been due to a combination of a perfect fit of my own academic interests, which I had developed over the year from my dissertational research and one very interesting module entitled ‘Sport Policy Analysis’ (SPA for the cool kids), and one inspirational man, Dr Mick Green who changed my life. Dr Mick Green was a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Sport and Leisure Policy at Loughborough University. He had taught me for a couple of my first year modules, and I chose him as my supervisor for my final year project. Partly because of his ingenious ability to lecture very complex ideas in the simplest of ways possible and do it in the most confident, critical yet convincing manner. But also because he had helped me through a tough time as my personal tutor when my dad died. Back on track now, so I applied for this PhD over the summer whilst working a full time job at OCR examinations board as a data capturer (a story for another day). The PhD application required you to write a 1500-2000 word proposal of what you intended to do. It was like a huge assignment. I would come back from work on one computer, and start on another writing the proposal. I had begun the job almost immediately after my exams, so thus whilst everyone else, rather understandably, was chilling out and going out, still staying in Loughborough, I had moved home, acquired a job, and tried to fit in a proposal of research. I had never done something so demanding as working a full time job, let alone a full time job with essentially excess homework. After I had finished and sent off all the documentation, I had built up a desire to succeed. I had massively worked to achieve a finished application, so by the time the interview came around I was determined to see it through. Of the 15 applicants, 5 got interviewed. Of the 5 interviewed, I came 2^nd. I came 2^nd to an academic with a MSc in Sport Management, from Loughborough. My feedback was extremely positive (and lengthy, approx 20 minutes long over the phone). They said that on paper, my application was the stand out application, of which they were highly interested, but for them I was considered ‘more of a risk factor’ due to not obtaining a MSc. I accepted, and took on board their comments. Interestingly, despite losing out, I came away from the whole experience, extremely determined and motivated. I had beaten 14 other applicants, presumably all of which has MSc’s, and had been told that my proposal was very strong and that the work I had produced was of ‘an extremely high calibre’.Which was a very positive and humbling statement from an established academic. Unbeknown to Sheffield, I had applied for the MSc in Sport Management at Loughborough University prior as a contingency plan. In fact I had done it way before the summer on the basis that I had no idea what i wanted to do post undergraduate. It was after this experience that for the first time I my life, I knew what I wanted to do. I had drive, I had ambition and I had a goal, and I had the means. I am now half way through my MSc in Sport Management, and this year I have already applied to four universities for conducting a PhD. Two in Canada (Alberta and Edmonton), and two in the UK (Uclan and Stirling), hopefully there will be a few more in the pipeline. The proposal I have given is practically unchanged from the one I gave to Sheffield. So I say role on next year, I can’t wait for it. For those who are a little interested, or perhaps curious. Below is that proposal. This is what I am extremely, but intrinsically passionate about, and wish to share with you, even in blog form. It is what I intend to spend four years of my life studying, studying for the sake of studying. I have no idea where it will lead me afterwards, and to be honest I think it matters not. PhDs shouldn’t necessarily be a means to an ends, but an ends in itself. I cannot think of anything more pure, more personal than the conduction of a PhD, proposed and carried out by you over a substantial period of time. I would love and welcome any feedback or just thoughts on it....

This is what I want to do for four years of my life...

“The Pursuit of Performance Excellence through Policy: An analysis of the relationship between UK Sport and the Priority National Governing Bodies of Sport”

By Mr Mathew Dowling

Statement of Aims & Objectives:

i) To review and analyse the developments in sports policy which have led to funding prioritisation of the current five National Governing Bodies (henceforth NGBs)

ii) To examine the changes in funding patterns and the conditions for grant funding to NGBs

iii) To analyse the impact these funding conditions have on the functioning and organisation of the priority NGBs

1. Introduction

UK Sport recently announced its funding for the current quadrennial period leading up to the London 2012 Olympics, with a clear indication of its sporting priorities. The most heavily invested sports include Athletics (£25,110,900), Sailing (£23,389,800), Rowing (£27,470,000), cycling (£26,922,700) and Swimming (£25,606,000). Thus of the total UK Sport funding equating to £256,588,649 of tax payers money, this oligopolistic cohort pertains a healthy 40.1% share (UK Sport, 2009). The research proposed seeks to examine this continual shift towards a systemic and ever increasing funding prioritisation of the five main priority sports (National Audit Office, 2003; UK Sport, 2009) and to analyse what effect this ‘resource dependency’ (Lukes, 1974) on Government, namely UK Sport, has had on their respective structures.

The project will primarily draw upon and incorporate a plethora of elite sports policy literature, but will be founded upon a combination of two key studies. The first is the joint initiative SPLISS (2004) and subsequent conceptual ‘SPLISS’ framework (Bosscher et al, 2006). The second of which is the seminal works of Green and Houlihan (2004; 2005). Moreover an analysis of UK Sport publications such as the ‘Guide to Income Generation for Governing bodies of Sport’ (2005) and the insightful ‘UK Sporting Preferences’ (2008) publication will also be examined. These are discussed in more depth within the main literature summary below.

To put the proposed research into its respective context, a quote from the SPLISS study (2004) concluded that “....the best predictor of output appears to be the absolute amount of funding allocated to elite sport” (p16) which more specifically referred to Pillar 1 with its framework. In Eastonain terms funding refers to the ‘input’ within the political arena (Easton, 1957), or economic injection (Downward, 2009). Yet despite this clear cut elite policy understanding of financial input and output of international success, namely at the Olympics, little is fully known about the qualitative implications this policy approach has on the organisational and structural make-up of these National Governing Bodies which deliver targets so diligently.

Moreover a considerable amount of research has focused on explaining what has led to elite sports development both nationally and internationally (Bosscher et al, 2006; Green & Houlihan, 2005; Green & Houlihan 2008, UKSport, 2004), yet little attention has been paid to the consequences and impacts of such approaches. The main exceptions have had a tendency towards ‘macro’ economical factors and event management (Baade & Matheson, 2002; Gratton et al, 2000; Gratton et al, 2005), or micro focused on athletes and/or coaches (Jowett & Lavallee, 2007; Lavallee & Wylleman, 2000). This research is derived from the growing consensus within sports policy literature that despite their utility in understanding elite sport policy “...macro-level factors such as population and GDP are becoming less accurate predictors of nations performance...”(Bosscher et al, 2006) and that a more valuable understanding of the policy-performance relationship lies within the ‘meso-level’ analysis (Green & Houlihan, 2005; p13).

2. Critical Summary of the Main Relevant Literature

What follows is an outline of the main literature which provided impetus for the research design and will be reviewed, analysed and drawn upon in detail throughout the proposed research development and its conduction. Analysis of these documents in addition to historical based literature, such as Houlihan (1997) and Houlihan & White (2002), should go some way in achieving objective i). For purposes of continuity this summary will be brief.

SPLISS (2004; 2006)

The primary research examined attempted to operationalize the Sporting Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success (henceforth SPLISS) SPLISS was initially study by a consortium of researchers from Belgium, Netherlands and the UK, later expanded to include Canada Italy and Norway. A combined methodology of surveys to athletes, coaches and co-ordinators and semi-structured questionnaires sought to operationalize 9 pillars of factors leading to international success. The proposed research looks at the first of these pillars financial support in particular 1b) financial support to governing bodies. SPLISS (2004) states that “...where the UK appears to have its greatest advantage is in Pillar 1 “...this finding suggests that elite sport in the UK is funded considerably better than in other sample nations” (p11). Thus bringing to light the question of what are the consequences of huge injections on our sporting organisations? This research seeks to answer this question by examining the effect this ‘considerable’ financial support has had on NGBs by examining those who have received the greatest amount of funding.

GREEN & HOULIHAN (2005; 2008)

The work of Green & Houlihan will also be explored. The focus of which is policy development that has lead to our current state of affairs within elite sport by looking at two sports; Swimming and Track and Field Athletics, along with their respective NGBs, across two countries Canada and the UK (Green & Houlihan, 2004).This cross-cultural study was later expanded to include three NGBs across three countries with the inclusion of Sailing and Australia respectively (Green & Houlihan, 2005). Their most recent publication incorporates an ensemble of scholars and academics who contributed towards a cross-cultural analysis of policy development across nine different nations (Green & Houlihan, 2008). The proposed research will build on this existing literature, to examine in detail the sighted significant developments within elite sports policy, which has, and will continue to be, exasperated by the inherent ‘arms race’ phenomenon (Green & Houlihan, 2005).

CONCEPTUAL APPLICATIONS OF ELITE SPORTS POLICY

Moreover within policy literature many argue that a coalition dominance exists towards an elitist sports policy paradigm (Green & Houlihan, 2004; Parrish, 2003), such work is primarily derived from mainstream policy conceptualisations including the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) by Sabatier (1988) and Kingdon’s (1995) Multiple Streams approach (MS) which purports a more anarchic approach to policy development. Within the research considerations will be made to these models and frameworks as explanations of how and why these changes in policy have occurred, and thus as plausible explanations for the change in NGBs. My dissertational work provides an illustration of this; in being able to explain HE Sports Sector policy changes through the MS conceptual framework.

UK SPORT (2005; 2008)

Other key supportive literature examined will be UK Sport publications over the past decade. These include a review and analysis of funding from UK Sport to attempt research objective ii) along with a qualitative documents including the ‘Guide to income generation for governing bodies of sport’ (2005) developed by UK Sport in conjunction with a number of ‘good examples of innovative practice’ (p2) such as Deloitte, Goodform, and the British Judo Association. Furthermore UK Sport commissioned a report in UK public sporting preferences pre and post Beijing Olympics (UK Sport, 2008). From which policy intentions and political priorities for NGBs can arguably be deduced, and thus merit significant attention within the literature analysis.

3. Methodology of Data Collection

The research methods purported are semi-structured interviews supported by a document analysis. Given that elite sports policy is ‘discursively constructed’ (Green, 2004), research into the area of elite sports policy “…would be better served by getting material which provides more in-depth insight into the topic, drawing on information provided by fewer informants” (Denscombe, 1998: p163)

By studying the five NGBs and UK Sport a ‘multiple case’ research design will be employed (Yin, 2003). Such analysis should elicit ‘focused comparisons’ (Green & Houlihan, 2005; p9) and reveal the intricacies of the UK Sport-Priority Sport relationship. According to May (1997) a case study approach “gain[s] a holistic understanding of a set of issues, and how they relate to a particular group or organisation...” (p97) with emphasizes on depth over breath, the particular rather than the general, process over outcome and the holistic over isolated (Denscombe,1998). Primary data from the interviews will be supported by secondary data in the form of document analysis, with emphasis on the funding pattern shifts since the establishment of the National Lottery and the ‘focusing event’ (Kingdon, 1995) of poor performance in Atlanta 1996 widely seen as the injection and impetus for the hegemony of elite sports policy in the UK (Green & Houlihan, 2004).

Semi-structured interviews will provide considerable in-depth material in an attempt to holistically gauge the complex organisational and policy processes between UK Sport and the priority NGBs. Interviews will be conducted using a ‘key informant’ sampling method (Allison et Al, 2006). Key Informants will be considered based on their involvement within and knowledge of the organisations, both at presently and historically. This is employed in an attempt to “...gain a more (agent) informed understanding of direction... [And] allow distinctions to be made between the ‘rhetoric’ and the ‘reality’...” (Green & Houlihan, 2005; p7). Interviews will then be transcribed and used as primary data to answer the main objectives outlined above, namely iii). Document analysis will provide an understanding of “...how different discourse structures the activity of actors and how they are produced, how they function, and how they have changed” (Howarth, 1995: p115), in this case reference will be made to UK Sport and the financial input structural change and the influence this has had on the priority NGB. Thus the two methods combined within its elite sports policy context should provide an insightful discourse for the future implications on NGBs of changing funding patterns (i.e. objective iv).