Colin Murray set to open Farnham Park

How the sporting landscape has changed! In just three weeks since my last update we’ve seen Spain defeated in a major footballing competition, the British & Irish Lions return victorious from Australia, and, even more outrageous, a British winner of the men’s singles title at Wimbledon.

And all the while, as the Tour de France gets underway following the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the Rugby League season reaches its climax en route to the playoffs just as we embark on back-to-back Ashes Test series; the official opening of Farnham Park was announced!

A home for British Baseball & Softball, that we’ve been crying out for, will be officially unveiled next Saturday (20 July) with matches between some of the country’s leading domestic players, GB stars and all overseen by TalkSport’s newest addition to their lineup, broadcast journalist Colin Murray.

It’s a tricky time for baseball and softball to gain coverage; we’re still just about in the post-Olympic hangover and this summer, with the ever-improving weather, is about empowering people to get behind the legacy of the Games.

Missing from the London Olympics were those very sports, baseball and softball, and though ultimately their inclusion would have won over many previously-sceptical people, and perhaps even some star athletes who would have been eligible for funding, it is now that we have to, as a community, come together to sell our message. Sell our product. Sell our sports.

There’s such a rich history to the games – not just here in the UK or even in the USA where they’re so closely linked to the national conscience, but in a broader context, even in our language. A big PR campaign would not be enough on its own; telling people that the sports are played is one thing, but getting out to demonstrate them and get people playing them is a much more difficult, much more time-resource dependent but inevitably a much more successful approach.

I know first hand how difficult it is to recruit people to the sports. For the past three years I’ve been driving the publicity and media campaigns of Redbacks Baseball & Softball, and although the coverage numbers are impressive, and akin to any other local sports club in our area, recruitment doesn’t happen in newspaper columns or on radio broadcasts. It happens by getting people to go into schools, go into local community days or try-a-sport event and have such a strong product and message that people will want to buy into it.

As sports we need to clarify our position, what we can offer and what we realistically expect. Value for money is so closely-linked to this aspect that it’s impossible to ignore. When kids, who already have a bike, are given free passes to try out the Olympic courses, or coaching funded by Sport England at the local tennis club gets youngsters to pick up a racket, where does baseball and softball fit into the landscape?

Hopefully, with the continued hard work of the volunteers already committing more than their fair-share of time to developing the sport, and the fewer than 50 people who have any direct involvement, paid or unpaid, in shaping the future of baseball and softball in Britain, we can do this. Farnham Park is our Wembley. We must get behind it.

Without Wimbledon, where would tennis be in Britain? Without Lords would cricket have such a cherished place in the hearts of the nation? Twickenham, Murrayfield, Lansdowne Road and the Millennium Stadium, likewise, are the focal points of the home countries every year as spring comes around.

Now we have this facility, this promised land, it is up to us, the great and the good, the few but the first-class, to make it our home.

Can I count on seeing you there, making camp for the many years of memories that lay ahead?