Torch relay lights my fire

Today I'm watching the last of the torch relay live an event I've been following ever since it's dramatic arrival at Lands End, through to Birmingham and on, finally now, to London.

I've been involved, on behalf of Hall Green Arts, in supporting two major events in parks in our constituency, and attended a handful of the tens of thousands of Torch relay planning meetings across the UK to coordinate certainly the largest single event I've ever been a part of.


Logistically it is truly incredible - to organise a rolling road block across the 8000 miles it journeyed over 2 months.  Then there's the promotion, marketing, coordinating other events around it, bad weather, the sponsors, safety and security issues...


There have been celebrities, there have been dramatic stunts, all around the raw simplicity and symbolsm of a torch relay.  But that's not what I find most exciting,

As Bruce Forsyth, one of the last torch bearers, put it:


      You can't beat a big crowd getting excited

It's the way it has brought so many people together, to celebrate the olympics.  Whatever that means to each of us, it's likely to be the closest many of us get to it.

Useful links

• Torch highlights
• Photos taken by our 'young paparazzi' team at Calthorpe Park
• Sunrise at Sparkhill
• Sunrise at Sparkhill 2
• Sunrise at Sparkhill 3
• Olympic Torch celebrations at Farm road Park

Olympic football

Our second puppet we couldn't decide on a name.  Rachel (Williams), Birmingham City and England striker was suggested - the puppet also has a striking resemblance to a younger Rio Ferdinand.  Might he make a come back in the Olympic Team, along with David Beckham? Name suggestions in comments please.  Here's some images, and that wonderful header by Rachel Williams to beat Chelsea.

Rio Ferdinand

Puppet made by residents

Either way, fun was had by all

Equality in Football at the Olympics?

David Beckham is grabbing the headlines once again with rumours Stuart Pearce will choose him to captain our Olympic team - much of the media attention is as always drawn to the men's game.  But hold on, who's this standing next to Stuart Pearce at press conferences?  A few papers have started to notice our women's team, and one woman in particular - perhaps one 

of the most successful women in football (and equally as accomplished as Stuart Pearce).

She has won 66 caps for England and won the women's FA cup three times – but as a coach, she has reached the top of her game, one that is not best known for its enlightened approach to women.

She has been in charge of the English team since 1998, and in 2003 became the first woman anywhere to get the Uefa pro licence, the highest coaching qualification available. Powell, 44, has taken her team into the European Championship three times, and this summer will be the second time she has led them to the World Cup. 

The British Women's team will be serious contenders at the Olympics - one I'm sure many from my home, Birmingham, will be watching closely.  The England squad already has 6 Birmingham City Players, and with recent success at the FA cup, likey to figure in the Olympics too.

Equality on the football pitch may yet be a while off.  Birmingham City won The FA Women’s Cup for the first-ever time after beating Chelsea in The Final after a penalty shoot-out, receiving a total of £5,000 from the FA cup prize fund, compared to £1,800,000 for the men's FA cup winners last year.

Field for the Olympics

This is the first workshop in making puppets for 'Field for the Olympics'.  In the build up to the Olympics Hall Green Arts will be visiting a range of settings (schools, parks, community centres) in Birmingham to make puppets depicting real or imaginary Olympic sports.  All the puppets will be brought together to form a fantastic collaborative community art work in the garden of Kings Heath Community Centre in time for the start of Olympics.  Christine, the Olympic swimmer: