British sport can have its own Berlin Wall moment
I will never forget the night the fell, exactly 20 years ago on 9 November - because it changed the face of world sport, as well as politics.
I was standing in the newsroom where I worked in the then German capital of , when my former colleague Martin Nesirky filed an urgent story from East Berlin. The old printer it emerged from went into alarm mode.
The story that flashed around the world in seconds had a simple message - East German citizens could now leave the country without a visa.
But what it really meant was that the Berlin Wall had just crashed down before our eyes. It took a few hours before everybody - and the guards on the wall particularly - understood what was happening.
For the next weeks and months, I was in the middle of the most exciting story of my life. And, it is often forgotten, that it was a big sporting story too.
I went into East Germany and hunted down the doctors who had been running the . Amazingly, they were very honest about the systematic cheating. In the late autumn of 1989, there was a real sense that East Germans needed to unload the emotional baggage they had been carrying around for decades.
Within hours of the Wall coming down, there was talk of a Berlin Olympic bid and a joint East-West Olympic team. At the time, both ideas seemed years away. But reunification happened within a year and we saw the emergence of a united German team at the . The Berlin bid was less successful, largely because the Cold War was over when it went to the .
I then reported on a fascinating five years of German sport when the and Germany was a force in a variety of Olympic sports, the mix of east and west German systems.
The country's powerful economy also meant many major championships came to Germany because there were plenty of big-name sponsors ready to back them.
The reason I am writing about this is that I feel Britain could be heading into equally exciting sporting days in the three years to the and beyond.
We've just had a great world gymnastics championships in London and the are heading to the this month. This will put the global spotlight on London and on the O2 as one of the key 2012 venues.
The Olympics will mean will be taking place in London and Britain in the next few years. There's the and almost certainly, a world athletics championships at the Olympic Park in the five years after 2012.
You could add the possibility of a football but my sources tell me there's going to be a lot of work to do to stop the Spanish and the Russians snatching that tournament away from us.
But even if the World Cup bid fails next year, London and Britain must enjoy this next decade and use these events to inspire kids to take up sport.
And we have to make sure people away from London - in Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland - get a piece of all of the action when the capital has its big days. That means cheap rail tickets, Park and Ride, and travel-ticket deals have to be a big part of the next 10 years.
I'm ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ London's Olympics Correspondent, which means I report on every aspect of the preparations for 2012. I'm going to be telling you what people are saying about London's preparations - both in the Olympic corridors of power and on the streets of the capital - and I want to hear your views.
Comment number 1.
At 6th Nov 2009, rjaggar wrote:An interesting article Mr Warner and I agree with you about integrated thinking concerning tickets and travel. Also it may be worth ensuring that as many events as possible occur during school holidays, including half terms. Noticeable how many more children were at the Emirates for the Carling Cup game vs Liverpool - half-term and sensible pricing ensured a sell-out and lots of enthused youngsters.....
World Cup:
i. England need a hard an realistic look at stadia, integrated transport links and hotel capacity. Spain and Portugal will have truly 21st century stadia, what with Bernabeu, Nou Camp, new stadia in Sevilla and Valencia, plus the Euro 2004 stadia in Portgual. And they have the weather for tourism too. So it's a tough opponent.
ii. Russia also have the 'we've never had the World Cup' argument, whereas our argument is 'Spain had it in 1982, we've not had it since 1966'.
I must say I'm surprised England 2018 didn't decide to include Cardiff in the process, since the Millennium Stadium is magnificent. We are where we are though. The new Spurs stadium looks exciting and hopefully Merseyside's realisation that Liverpool FC is akin to Barca will make heads roll if a stadium isn't built pretty soon.....
I must say if I were looking at a compelling knock-out-the opposition-stone dead bid, I'd expect to see:
i. A 60,000 stadium in the North East, in Leeds and in Sheffield.
ii. A 70,000 stadium in Liverpool.
iii. A 50,000+ stadium in the East Midlands.
iv. A 60,000 stadium in Birmingham.
Clearly, the historical legacy of club structures in our major cities may pose challenges to make that economically realistic. But if 2018 is unsuccessful, I can't ever see a future bid being successful in its absence. Because the bar will have been raised in several successive tournaments and that'll be that.
I'd also expect to see new stadia being linked to key modern infrastructure linkages for bids beyond 2018. For example:
i. A high-speed train from Liverpool John Lennon via Liverpool via new Anfield via Old Trafford, Manchester, Eastlands, Leeds, Leeds Stadium, Hull, Hull Stadium, Humberside airport. A bullet train for business which can stop at sporting venues on match day. With a branch up to the NE stopping at Leeds/Bradford/Teesside airports plus any new superstadium in the NE.
ii. Similar from LJL to Manchester Airport to Sheffield to RH airport to East Midlands airport to Cambridge down to HS1. Connections to new/modern stadia in Sheffield and East Midlands.
iii. HS2 is already being talked about - think about where any new stadia in Birmingham might appear.
iv. There's a variety of possibilities to improve transport links to London stadia, but Wembley, Twickenham and the new White Hart Lane would top my agenda there.....any way of linking Stratford to the latter and on to Cambridge?
Just remember, stadia are built to last 50 years plus, so it's a good idea to co-ordinate infrastructure upgrades with stadia building programmes and more widespread regeneration programmes.
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Comment number 2.
At 8th Nov 2009, photo762 wrote:Where once the British formed Square and were not afraid to confront all; now, form committee, political correctness and the nanny state fail all.
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Comment number 3.
At 21st Nov 2009, Graham Newsom wrote:Like it or not, if we want the 2018 World Cup in England we need to play the football politics. Belated recognition that too many members of the 2018 bid team were adding minimal value is at least one positive step.
Without any shadow of doubt Lord Triesman is the wrong person to lead this bid (which is different to the need to have him as part of the bid team). To persuade FIFA representatives, the front man should be an articulate footballing icon - not many of those around I hear you say. David Dein will be a good champion behind the scenes but we need someone prepared to put in the hours in front of the cameras and committees around the World.
Now that it looks unlikely that he'll be returning to manage Newcastle my money goes to Alan Shearer. But my money won't get him - the FA needs to put their hands into their pockets and offer him the necessary contract that will better his current media contracts. On top of that offer him a share to the rights of the book that explains how the bid was won.
And finally, let's spend a bit more time wooing the British media. Like the 2012 Olympics, this offers everyone the opportunity to show we have the capacity to put on a great tournament and be a welcoming host to the rest of the World. We need our own media to believe and write that before we go selling our case elsewhere.
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