CRISIS MANAGEMENT
How issues from Oriam’s past have helped facility to survive sporting shutdown September return for Kerr’s Euro tilt
NO organisation could possibly have been adequately prepared to deal with the ravaging effects of Covid-19 but at Oriam they have at least been able to call upon the knowledge gained during other challenging times.
“We’re actually fairly experienced when it comes to crisis mode,” says Ross Campbell, executive director at Scotland’s sports performance centre.
“In 2016 we opened a brand new national facility while still running all our existing facilities. Then in 2018 we had to deal with the Beast from the East, and then last year one of our old buildings flooded. And now this year it’s Covid-19.
“So we’ve been through a lot in the last few years. Those experiences did genuinely help with managing this situation the best we can.”
Oriam, based at Heriot-Watt University’s Riccarton campus in Edinburgh, is a facility used by both casual and elite athletes alike. In theory, students could go for a run on a treadmill and see a Hearts midfielder working out to their left and a prop from Edinburgh Rugby doing similarly to their right. Although anyone in the gym won’t be working out quite so close in future.
The arena has been closed since March in line with government guidelines, depriving “anchor tenants” such as the two capital organisations mentioned above and Scottish Squash of their traditional base.
It is also seen the postponement of visits planned by the Scottish men’s national football and rugby squads ahead of their respective UEFA 2020 play-off and Six Nations commitments, while the Czech Republic were also meant to be in town this summer having booked Oriam as their hub for the Euros.
The good news is that the Czechs have already agreed to return next summer, while Oriam’s regular partners will start to filter back once the building re-opens.
“We were one of the last facilities in the country to close and will probably be one of the first in the country to open again,” adds Campbell. “Around 92 percent of our staff are on furlough just now but the eight percent who aren’t are planning pretty hard. We feel we could be open by July 1 or, if there’s stress-testing, we could even maybe bring that forward.
“We’ve obviously not been able to host the Scotland rugby or football teams recently and we also had English teams who had wanted to come up for pre-season. So that’s a shame we couldn’t deliver those.
“But Oriam was thriving before this and it will be again. Our name now has a wider reach. UEFA want to come back next year so the Czech Republic are already booked in again. Plus we have long-term contracts with different sports and national agencies. We will have financial struggles no doubt but having such strong partners really helps.”
Campbell estimates Oriam – who are currently in the process of adding six indoor tennis courts – will lose £1m as a result of the enforced closure, a shortfall that will be met by Heriot-Watt as part of a long-term agreement. But he hopes that the gradual easing of lockdown will soon see more sports get the green light to return to help prevent those losses from expanding.
“We’re very fortunate to have someone like the university who invest in us as our staff costs alone are more than 50 percent of our expenditure,” adds Campbell.
“It won’t be easy but we’re staying positive-minded.
The government can’t look exclusively at the R number [that measures how quickly the coronavirus will spread] as there are so many other things that will affect the health and well-being of the nation.
“They’ve done a sensible job to date but it can’t just stay open-ended as there’s no way the university could keep Oriam afloat if we were losing millions. But as long as it’s a short-term thing then they will be there for us.”
Campbell is eager to see football return soon, too. The Montrose player/assistant manager plans on pulling on the boots again as he approaches his 37th birthday and says the League One club
SCOTLAND women are set to return to action in September in their bid to reach the Euro Championships.
Shelley Kerr’s side were only two games into their so-far flawless Group E campaign, beating Cyprus and Albania convincingly, when qualification was halted due to the coronavirus in March.
However, Scotland will now take on Cyprus away on September 18 before hosting Portugal at Hibs’ Easter
Road stadium four days later.
They will then face Albania (October 23), Finland (October 27), Portugal (November 27) and Finland (December 1). Scotland are currently second, four points adrift of Finland, who have played two more games.
The group winners progress to the finals, while the second-placed team can qualify as one of three-best runners up or through the play-offs.
The tournament, which is being hosted by England, has also moved back a year from summer 2021 to 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
DERECK Chisora has revealed he could try his hand at Mixed Martial Arts if he faces a long wait for his heavyweight bout with Oleksandr Usyk.
Chisora would rather wait than have the fight with former undisputed cruiserweight champion Usyk go ahead without fans at London’s O2 Arena, but if that means a significant delay he could sign up for a fight with Bellator MMA.
“We’re just waiting for lockdown to finish so we can see how many people we can have in the O2,” Chisora said.
“I think this fight needs fans. Some fights don’t but certain fights need fans and this is one where you need people to enjoy it.
“If the wait is longer I can jump in to Bellator. We’re waiting to see the date they give us for Usyk but if there’s a bigger gap we’re going to jump in to Bellator straight away.”
If Chisora can beat Usyk when the pair do meet, that could set up a bout with Anthony Joshua, but the 36-year-old is keen not to get ahead of himself.
“It would be a great fight, two local guys from north London,” he said. “If it happens, it happens, but for now I’m just focusing on Usyk, focusing on the southpaw, and training for that guy.
“We’ve all got different paths right now but we never know what’s going to happen.”