If I was on Room 101 a phrase that grates on me regularly is ‘sport X is at the heart of our local community’ and would be one of my nominations for the bin.

I particularly hear it about sports clubs, gyms, leisure centres etc in my work. As you know I love sport and I do believe for some people it is a vital and important part of their lives. But so are many other community activities. The majority of the population do not belong to a sports club or go to watch sport.

So this letter in our local magazine summed it up for me. I have lived in the village for 26 years and have never been to watch a game at Quorn FC. I am part of their problem. I have played one charity game at the club and attended one birthday party. I jog past the gates and I see the floodlights, but as the Chair of the club bemoans the football club is NOT the heart of the local community. For people like me not interested in football why should it be and why should we all be made to feel guilty for not attending matches?

Does a football club ‘Deserve’ better support. I think not. It earns its place in my diary.

I don’t choose to watch most sports and specifically not football. I don’t understand the football pyramid, so why would I want to watch this level of football?

So can we stop claiming we are the heart of the local community. We are hopefully part of a complex set of local social networks of community and support but let’s not overclaim how important we are to most people’s lives. There are plenty of other community groups from cradle to grave that are not sport who have an equal claim.

I would love sport to be at the heart of most communities, but I recognise it isn’t and many people will find other things to do to be ‘community’ through arts or faith for example. We do need better community cohesion, but demanding deserved support doesn’t really work with so many options for people. We have a crisis of loneliness so community IS important but we need to work out HOw.