When Fusion Blows Your Fuse - Paul Doyle, Haringey Aquatics

I hope after listening to the episode you appreciate my little word play. Now look at us - the third sports episode this year 2023 is bringing all the sports people out! Had a great chat with Paul and it really makes you appreciate the dedication of so many adults when supporting the young generation to really fulfil their sporting ambitions. I hope that we will get that standout Tottenham swimmer to make us all proud and bring some money for this sport.

Haringey Aquatics website: https://uk.teamunify.com/team/HA/page/home
Haringey Aquatics Insta (not up to date):  https://www.instagram.com/haringeyaquatics/
Haringey Aquatics twitter (very active): https://twitter.com/teamharingey

......................................................................................................................................................
pod instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anybodyeverybodytottenham/
pod website : https://www.anybodyeverybodytottenham.com/
pod twitter: https://twitter.com/AnybodyBody

If you fancy supporting my hobby - buy me a coffee :)
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/anybodyeveI

Transcript

Jamila  0:10  
Hi I'm Jamila and anybody everybody Tottenham is a bi monthly podcast, introducing the good people of Tottenham to you. Hello my friends in today's episode we've got another sports person. Again a slightly different angle because this one is coming from the coaching perspective and it is about swimming and water polo and diving: Haringey aquatics. Normally in these divisive times I don't lik e to encourage any complaining or any any negativity. But I felt you know, Haringey has been so divided about the LTNs that actually fusion seems to be a more of a case that we're all united in our opinion about fusion. So there will be a big chunk of talking about them in this episode. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much. Today on the pod I've got Paul Doyle from Haringey Aquatics, thank you very much for joining me today. (No problem). So Paul, can you tell us a little bit about how you got to Tottenham?

Paul  1:17  
Basically I moved here, what would it be now just under 40 years ago. I live in the Downhills Park area, and I've been a local resident for quite some time. With regards to the Haringey aquatics, I was a swimmer as a kid. So I've always kind of been involved in the swimming world, I am currently head of PE at a School in West London. So it's sports always been quite a large part of what I do. I think it was back in about 2008 I got asked to come along and help out at the club, because they were going through some difficult times at that moment in that moment. And then I've kind of went with the idea of just helping them out. And one thing led to another and before I knew it, they were asking me if I would stay on and take the club forward, which is hopefully what I've done over the last few years.

Jamila  2:12  
So you've seen Tottenham over quite a long period of time. What changes have you noticed?

Unknown Speaker  2:18  
I've kind of feel that in the area that I live - when I when I first moved in, I was probably the youngest resident in my road and it was very much a kind of almost like a retirement village. There were a lot of old people there and I moved in. And what I would say now is that the type of people that live there now, it's a much younger age group now a lot of families, a lot of young children, and I'm now more the elder statesman of the road, but yeah, so that's something I've definitely seen within the kind of confines of my own street. But I think in Tottenham, in general, I think, certainly, in the last, I would say four or five years, you've seen a change. I'm not gonna say gentrification because if you look at Hackney in a way that's changed over the last 15 years, I kind of feel that Tottenham, certainly Tottenham Hale, if you go around and look at Tottenham Hale and all of the all of the construction work that's going on around there at this moment in time. It's going through a change in terms of yeah, the type of people that are now moving into the area. And I think, yeah, I think in 10 or 15 years time, we may look well look at Tottenham Hale, certainly and the surrounding areas very similar to what's going on in Hackney, although I don't think the housing stock ps quite the same

Jamila  3:33  
Haringey aquatics is the only competitive aquatics club in Haringey, it actually started in Tottenham in 1948. And then as like Haringey was put together, so it's also quite interesting, your pools are in very different parts of Haringey, because I feel like it has partly been beneficial for you to kind of bring the different areas together. But it also had some challenges that I read about, like people having to travel between and that being a problem.

Unknown Speaker  4:07  
Haringey in itself, if you look at the east and the west side of the borough, they're very kind of diverse areas, you know, you've got on the west, some of the kind of most expensive houses in probably the London area and, on the east side of the borough, maybe one of the most depressed parts of London. So it is quite a diverse group. I mean, we are an organization that does spread the entire borough and we draw our members from from all around the borough and some of the surrounding boroughs. You know, we have swimmers who come from Barnet, and we have some those who come from Enfield. So, you know, we do draw people in from other places. I think it's a good thing, but at the same time, it does present its challenges and one of those is certainly - I mean in the past one of the things that we've we found happens fairly often is that people who live on the west side of the borough are not too keen on traveling across to the East side of the borough, and vice versa. Now, you know, I don't think it's for the same reasons. But we have we do have issues with regards to, you know, that kind of cross borough transfer, the way I overcame it, when I first arrived is that I decided to move what are the performance of us they're the better ones, you know, we've got quite a number of kids who are very serious about their swimming. And I decided that it would be better if they trained on the east side of the borough, so at Tottenham green, because I felt that you then had a group of kids who, who had a lot more desire and commitment to the sport, and it would be easier to get them to come because they knew that if they wanted to improve, it would be better to come with me on the east side of the borough. So that's kind of how we started off, it's still very much a kind of East West divide in terms of membership, which, you know, inevitably it will be, but at this moment in time with all the closures that's presented a whole new set of problems for us. Yeah, certainly, as a club, we've tried to make sure that we cover the whole borough and not just swimming, I mean, you know, if you look at the club, the reason why or like you say it was founded in 48. And at the time, it was Haringey borough swimming club. And in the last while, certainly since I've arrived, we've added the diving section, and the water polo section, which is now why the name is Haringey aquatics, because it's not just solely a swimming club. It's, it's got other other kind of disciplines as part of what we do. So that's, been a kind of a recent thing that's been since I've arrived, because when I arrived, I didn't understand why they had these facilities, and they had organizations that were using them, and they were all different kind of groups. And I just felt well, surely it would be a better idea to put these people together. Because when it comes to, you know, negotiating, and when it comes to, you know, like, let's say, when you're dealing with the council, and you're dealing with service providers, there's, strength in numbers. And that's kind of what what happened is that, you know, I think the total membership of the club is somewhere between 600 and 700. When you look at, you know, the Learn to Swim program and the competitive swimming program, and and, and the water polo and the diving, and but I think the water polo and a diving make up, probably about 80 or 90 members. So it's a it's not a majority part of the club, but it's quite a significant number. And it's not, for me, it's not just the numbers, it's about you know, like the kind of the, the appeal of the club is that it's not just about learning to swim or competitive swimming, that we have other elements to it as well. And we get quite a lot of cross discipline transfers. So you know, we get kids that belong that are swimmers and then they kind of feel like oh, swimming's, you know, done for them now. And they'll go and they'll start playing water polo.

Jamila  7:52  
Yeah. And I read as well, that diving and having these facilities is quite unusual for London that are just not that many,

Unknown Speaker  8:00  
Incredibly rare, which is one of the reasons why I don't I didn't understand they weren't making the best use of it at that particular time. Because having a diving pit is quite as like you say, it's quite a rarity. Now, where we are, we're probably like, Walthamstow is probably the next nearest borough that has a diving pit. And then the next one would be  the new LIC, the, you know, the Olympic Park one. They are a kind of dwindling facility, which is a bit of a shame, considering, you know, when you look how well we seem to do it in dive at major competitions, like the Olympic Games. So, you know, we have these situations where, yeah, actually the grass roots of it is slowly being kind of eroded. There's not so many opportunities for children to get into diving. So I always, you know, that was one of the reason that's one of the things that I said to the committee is that, you know, we're talking about quite a rare resource here. And, and we may be able to draw people into it and, and it never seems to be, you know, despite the fact that we've had issues with like COVID and pool closures and refurbishment and stuff like that, you know, the numbers maybe go down, but it never seems to take very long for the diving club to get back up to full capacity. So there's obviously a desire for people to be part of. So you know, I thought to myself yes let's offer them the opportunity. And it's Yeah, but they are very, very rare commodity.

Jamila  9:23  
Because I was thinking yeah, it's just easier to kind of finance a bit of football coaching, because there you just got the pitch than the whole heating of pools, like it's a very expensive thing, isn't it.

Unknown Speaker  9:36  
It is it's very difficult to make it pay, you know, I mean, it is a very difficult thing to make pay. I mean, I think you can I think it is possible, but I think the way to do it is to be incredibly efficient in the way that you organize the timetable. And certainly the parts of the timetable that can generate the income are the Learn to Swim program. I mean we do that incredibly well as a club, you know, because that's for me is how swimming clubs survive. If you don't have that learn to swim base, you don't have a club, because it's very difficult. Because if you were looking at it just purely on an economics thing, if you had kids, like we have in the performance group who have the opportunity to swim 16/17 hours a week, in order to pay for 16 or 17 hours a week, those kids would be paying hundreds of pounds a month to swim to make, the only way you can kind of offset the cost of having the kids at the very top of the tree is to have a load of kids at the bottom who only come in for half an hour, once a week, and they're paying. And that's what generates the income. And it's the same for these, you know, the service providers like fusion, is that if if they're going to make the swimming pool pay, they have to have a very efficient Learn to Swim program. And unfortunately, I don't think they do.

Jamila  10:55  
I saw somewhere that when they brought in fusion, I don't know when it was you were already there? Has it been like 10 years? 11 years now?

Paul  11:04  
It's gonna be that long. Yes. It will be about that. Yeah. Because I think they give them a 15 year contract. So I think they're coming into the last four or five years of it now.

Jamila  11:12  
I've never heard anyone say anything positive about fusion. 

Paul  11:16  
It's difficult to do it. I mean, you know, they don't they really don't make it easy for you. Because it's you know, it, it's kind of crisis management, everything they do when something goes wrong, it's what is the cheapest option? That's their that seems to be their business model. You know, what is the cheapest way to get something fixed? I mean, the whole situation that we currently have with the Tottenham green pool is ludicrous because they're going oh, yeah, the problem was because there was a flood in the boiler room. And, and what happened was the water level rose, and blew, all the electrics. And you think, oh, man, that is so unfortunate. It's been flooding for two years. You know, that's not unfortunate. That's gross neglect, you know, that's just somebody's not taking responsibility for maintaining the facility. And to me, it's just, I can't believe that, you know, we're even having a conversation about should, you know, , are they, you know, worthy of running these facilities, they're not, they don't care, there's no, and that's what I say, you know, and that goes back to like I say, making something pay is that everything is trying to be cut price, you know, they're all trying to do something with, you know, the least amount of money, or least amount of effort put into it, to try and get as much out of it as they can. And sometimes that's not what works, you know, I mean, sometimes people, you know, certainly the wider community want to see a facility that's well organized, and well run, and that's not what we've got, I mean, what we've got is something that's barely running, you know, like, it's literally held together by blue tac and cello tape. And that, you know, and that's no way to run a facility of any kind that you've got, that's open to the public, you know, I mean, you know, it's just badly organized, you know, I mean, you know, the situation that we recently had with the pools at Park Road, you know, with the closure, you know, is that basically the council stepped in to shut the pool. Because fusion were dosing the pool by hand with the chlorine, just throwing it into the pool. And obviously, you know, you can do it that way, but it's not, it's not particularly scientific, and it's not a best way of, of getting the right levels, you know, what you need is a chlorination unit that's pumping into the, it's all run by computer, but they were all broken. So rather than fix them, they just throw it in by hand, and then wait for the circulation to kind of go and then test it to see whether they've thrown in enough chlorine, you know, the council came along and said, This is not what we want. They shut the pool, and then, you know, fusion, then at that point in time decided, Oh, we better fix these chlorination units, but they hadn't up to that point. There's three of them, and all of them were broken, you know, now, they don't all break at the same time. So that's been an ongoing situation. But like I say, what they do is they look at a situation oh there is a problem with the oh how much is it? Oh it's 2000 pounds to fix one of those oh blimey, we can't do that. What can we do? I'll tell you what, just get a bucket of chlorine and go and throw it in the pool. And that's their approach, you know, and that's why we're in the situation we are with all of the problems at all of the facilities because they just always look for the cheapest possible way to fix something. And not only that, there's no thought that there's no there's no kind of (long term plan), all just random like crisis management. And that's basically where we are. It's just, you know, it's so frustrating.

Jamila  14:29  
I saw that you recently went to Haringey Council, is that your main issue at the moment with Fusion and the closures or are there other?

Paul  14:37  
I think for us as a club that you know, certainly for me as a coach, is that you know, we're trying to do something that we feel is is worthwhile certainly is a community project, something where we have a lot of children or swimmers who are very committed to what they want to do and as because we consider ourselves a competitive swimming club, we're always looking to try and raise the standard of what we do. In the not too distant past, prior to COVID, we had seven kids who went to Nationals and, you know, a club of our size, that's, that's overperforming. But we know, we feel we're doing a really, really kind of good job. The problem is, is that it's being made more and more difficult, by virtue of the fact that the facilities are constantly letting us down that, you know, that the recent closure of Tottenham green, and obviously Park Road at the same time was an issue. But this is an ongoing thing, you know, there's that was just, you know, like, that was just the thing that suddenly brought it to the kind of public eye was all those things, nothing was open. But before that, we'd been suffering a lot of closures, and, you know, you'd go and the water temperature would be too cold, or it'd be too warm, or it'd be too much chlorine, or the pH levels were too low. You know, there was a whole multitude of reasons why they couldn't be, you know, we couldn't use this facility. And when you're, when you're talking about running something, and it's a competitive program, you need consistency, you need to have the kids in the water, you can't keep having kids, and what happens is, and unfortunately, we, you know, we've just suffered it recently, one of our better swimmers has transferred to another club because of the facilities. And it's very difficult to argue with that, you know, you know, it's very disappointing for me, because it's not really ever happened to me before to have somebody go, but it's because of the facilities and because of the poor management and organization that we've lost swimmers and probably will continue to struggle to get to where we need to be, until we get to a point where everything's working the way it should work,

Jamila  16:41  
shall we focuse on the positives? Do you want to boast a little bit about your wins over the last decade here?

Paul  16:50  
When I first arrived, the club was in a kind of, I'm not gonna say a poor state, because I think it kind of undervalues the effort that a lot of people were putting in at the beginning. But I think a lot of it was misplaced. And when I arrived, they kind of were probably at their lowest ebb in terms of, you know, how people felt about the club, I think there was a lot of disillusionment with the coaching that was going on. And they were struggling financially to keep the thing running. And they asked me if I would come along and help out. And as I say, you know, eventually they asked me to stay. And then we had a period of probably, I don't know, 18 months, where they asked me, they said, Oh, you know, we're struggling financially. So I said to them I'll do it for, you don't have to pay me, I said, I'll do it for 18 months. But on the understanding that you clearly know that I'm only here because I want it to be a competitive program. You know, by my very nature, I'm a competitive man. And I like to see things get better. So they kind of agreed to that. And then gradually over the years, we've kind of improved and there's been a number of additions to the club, because I always said that when I arrive, I want to, you know, by the time I leave, I want it to be better than when it was when I arrived. And I'd like to think that's kind of where we are now, even despite all of the issues that we've had. But when I first arrived, first off, I went around looking for new coaches. And you know, one of the coaches that currently coaches with me now was, you know, was one of the first that I brought on board. And the rest of the coaches that I've currently got are either people who've been swimmers with me, your best way of getting coaches is to generate them yourself, because coaching, swimming, maybe coaching any sport, certainly to young kids, is a very antisocial, you know, kind of business to be in. Because if you imagine that if you're a competitive program, and you've got kids doing early morning training, you're getting up at five o'clock, and you're going to the pool, and the kids are in at six. And then there's 730, so you're up before everybody else has even thought about it. And then you go to work. Or if you don't, if you're a full time coach, you're around during the day when nobody else is. And then you know, in the afternoon, you're thinking about going back to work because your first session is at six o'clock or whatever, when everybody's coming back from work, you're going out again, and then you don't get back to half past 9 / 10 o'clock at night. So and then at weekends, if you're truly a competitive swimming club, you're going to spend a lot of weekends going into competitions. So it's not it's not a very social job. I mean, both of my sons have gone on to be coaches. And both of them now are going no, can't do any more. Because it's just not a it's not a good job if you want a family and you want a life, you know. So in order to do it, you've got to have a bit of commitment to it, suck it up, get on with it. Eventually we added the diving section to the club. And then we added the water polo because we found that we had a parent of one of the swimmers of the club at the time, was a water polo player. So we asked him if he would be interested in organizing a water polo team which he did, which was going - he's still there now. And you know, what's happening is he's got a few kids now, who are former players who are now coaching - same with the diving, we got a number of kids. So that's a good part of the club is that, you know, now we've got kids coming back. And they're running the club, like we'd like, I have.

Jamila  20:14  
Okay, so you've expanded a lot, you expanded, what you're doing with the water polo and the diving and just the amount of kids that are involved. What about competitions? You said, you're competitive? What can you boast about? 

Paul  20:29  
Well, I mean, we've had kids who, like I said, you know, like, for a small club of our size to get kids to, to national championships, I mean, you're talking about the top 24, top 40 Kids in the country. And we've had six or seven of those, just prior to COVID they went there, and some have won medals, you know, I mean, so, you know, we're, we're a small club that I feel has what it needs to generate swimmers at that level. And as I say, not all clubs can boast that and you know, certainly not in those numbers, certainly not clubs of our size. There are some massive kind of, you know, clubs in other boroughs where they've got like, 1000s, of swimmers. We're not like that. I'd like to think we could get there. But as I say, in order to do that, you have to have consistency of facilities.

Jamila  21:18  
And then I found a petition for another pool in Wood Green. But I couldn't see when that petition was. So is that still going? Are you still dreaming of a pool?

Paul  21:28  
I think I think that dream may well have crashed and burned. Because those things need political drive, they need to have the need to be a bit of a desire for it to happen. And I don't think that's there, 

Jamila  21:39  
you basically need to get one of your kids to win something big, you know, and then then there will be a political desire that's like, oh, 

Paul  21:47  
yeah, yeah, I mean, these things, you know, it sometimes it is, you know, you only need a little bit of success for something to be driven along. And, you know, before you know, it, there is that desire for something to happen, you know, like, if you look at Tom Daley, the diver, you know, if you go to the LAC, it's now the Tom Daley Academy, you know, I mean, and, you know, like, so they're using his name to drive the sport on, you know, and why not? You know, I mean, if you have somebody on there at that level, then use it to the best you can to make it, you know, to give the other people following on behind the best opportunity to achieve the level that he has, you know, so, yeah, you don't need much. The only problem is, is that you need facilities. And that's where we're really struggling at the moment. There's a number of things that you need in order to make somebody a success, you know, and facilities, unfortunately, are critical.

Jamila  22:31  
So what are your hopes for the near future? Or what what do you still want to achieve? What's on your competitive radar? To me,

Paul  22:40  
you know, I'd like us to get to a point where I would consider us truly a competitive swimming club, I don't think we've ever quite made it to the level that I'm talking about. I mean, I think a lot of other people would go "but yeah you've got kids who are winning medals at Nationals" and stuff like that. And yeah, we have been, you know, very, very good at it. But I don't, I don't feel that we're quite at the level where I would personally say, we are truly a competitive swimming club. And I think we've had a number of opportunities to get close to that. Over the time, I've been here, but every time we've got close, I feel like I'm cursed in some way. Because every time I think we've got close to it, something's come along to kind of get in the way. I mean, you know, if I, if I just think about the things that have happened over, you know, my time here, the first time I felt we were getting close to it, we had pool refurbishments. So what happened was, we had 15 months of either Tottenham green being closed, being refurbished and Park Road was open, or the reverse of that. So basically, when they closed Park Road, literally, our club lost 150 members overnight, because a lot of the kids who are in the west of the borough wouldn't travel over to the east of the borough to come for lessons. So you know, that kind of knocked us right back. So when we came back from there, yes, the ones who transferred and come were very, very good, because they'd been in the same place. But we lost a lot of the kids behind them - all of that development, you know, and unfortunately, swimming is very much a developmental sport, you know, you have to have the time with the kids to get them to the level you want them. And if you just don't have the kids, if there's a big hole where there should have been kids, but the pool is shut, you have a problem, you know. So we came back after the refurbishment and when okay, you know, so we'll, we'll start to do I think that was in like 2014 or something. And then we got over there and we started to build again, and we were you know, being successful. We were starting to get kids at Nationals and I thought, okay, you know, it's taken some time, but you know, we can do it. And then COVID came along and smashed a great big hole in what we were doing, you know, so we came back after COVID and at the time, we were losing I reckon 3500 pounds a month as a club, trying to put on what we were doing before but with a much more reduced number, you know, eventually we got back on the straight and narrow and, and we then came back, grow the numbers in the club again. And then now we're shut again. You know, I mean, Tottenham Green shut. So, you know, again, we're in a situation where now you've got a whole load of kids on the east side of the borough who are not swimming. So I don't know.

Jamila  25:19  
So you said, you wanted it to be real competitive, and then you're gonna leave or retire. But like, the way you sound, it doesn't sound like you will ever retire. What would you do? 

Paul  25:30  
That's what people say to me, they go, Paul, you know, because I mean, you know, currently, I'm at retirement age, we say, so, you know, like, people go, Oh, you know, like, you know, certainly my family go, are you ever gonna retire? And I kind of feel because they kinda go "you do so many hours? How can you? How can you do 64 hours a week and do it year after year after year?2 And my answer has always been the same is that I don't see any of it as a job. You know, if you know, teaching for me isn't a job. I love coming into work it kind of makes my day and doing the swimming after school. It's not a job. It's something I enjoy. And I think when you've got stuff and you enjoy it, I think it's always easier to keep doing it. While I can do it. Why not? You know, I mean, there will come a time. You know, there are other things in my life that I'd kind of like to do. I mean, I have no plans on giving up on the swimming, but I think there will come a time. I'm hoping that, you know, that a bell will ring and it will happen.

Jamila  26:25  
Okay, so we are just needing the top tips section. What are nice places that you even though it sounds like you don't have a life outside of swimming, but maybe

Paul  26:39  
(laughs) I have to say that's very, very true. I mean, you know, like, Yeah, in terms of like a kind of social animal - I don't think I would ever be considered that. I was at home over the summer. And a boy who used to be very, very friendly with my youngest son came around. And I hadn't seen him in probably 15 years. And at the time, I was out in the garden at my house. And I was I was rebuilding it because I come from a building family, so and he came round and I was building something. He came in the end he went I don't believe it he said, he said, my last recollection of you, was you dressed up in like builders stuff, putting something together. And he said, 15 years later, I'll come back and you're still doing it. So yeah, I, yeah, probably not the best one for social things. But, I mean, if you were ... - what is it that you'd kind of want me to kind of talk about?

Jamila  27:37  
As a builder, maybe you've got like, a favorite little place where you can pick up wood and I don't know or something like this? I mean, at least this would be very different, you know?

Paul  27:49  
Well, I mean, there are certainly some places that I use quite regularly, you know, SJ Wackett a wood company at the back of behind the Spurs ground at the end of White Hart Lane. B&Q at Tottenham Hale I use quite regularly because I don't live too far from there. But while certainly where I live, the things that I like about the area is that there are parks at both ends of the street. So when you know which was one of the big things when I first moved there that I was kind of quite keen on was, you know, Downhills Park and Lordship Rec, two quite nice places to go. Downhills Park in particular, I think as as kind of having a little bit of a refurb over the last few years. I think that's quite nice. And there seems to be you know, some some kind of money invested in that. If I was thinking about places to eat, I think San Marco, which is a kind of pizza place in Bruce Grove. I have been there a few times I quite like going there. I also quite like going to some of the kind of Turkish and Greek places along Seven Sisters road. I always kind of find that, you know, you can kind of get a decent meal along there. If it was drinking, that you're thinking about. I think if it was me, I'd go to the beehive, which is just off of Tottenham high road. The reason why I go there is it's literally a two minute walk from where my son lives. So we often go to watch the football together at the beehive. But I think the shaftsbury seems to be one that my family liked to go to - the Shafts - is it the Shafts- I think it's on the corner of St. Anne's road and I think it's St. Anne's road and seven sisters or is it green lanes? Green lanes, maybe green lanes 

Jamila  29:27  
Oh, no. Is it the Salisbury? Salisbury? .

Paul  29:30  
Wherever it's massive pub on the corner. Yeah. And you know, up like four or you know, it's quite an architectural you know, in terms of (it's) quite a nice one. And that seems to be one that they don't mind going to certainly my oldest son and his wife seem to go there reasonably regularly sfor a little drink so you know. If we're talking about sporting facilities, I suppose you've got to look at the new Spurs ground as something that people could kind of come and look at because you know that's quite an awe inspiring sight. When you go past it, how it dwarfs everything else in the area. And, you know, like, I don't think anybody quite had an idea of the size of it when it was originally planned. But when you go past it now, and you look at it, you just think, Whoa, I mean, I'm a Chelsea fan. So you know, (I was gonna ask), I'm never really I've never really ganna be keen on going in there certainly at this moment in time anyway. Well, last weekend, we got our backside kicked playing there. So I'm not keen on that. But, but my two sons are both spurs fans. And they say that it's a, you know, wonderful facility. And, you know, the kind of thing that a community I suppose, can be proud of, like you said that sometimes what happens is you just need a spark. And I suppose, if you look up, you know, what the other events that take place there. I mean, they have like the American football, I think, a little while ago, they had like a Lady Gaga concert there and somebody else (Beyonce is gonna do quite a few). You know, so I suppose, you know, if you're looking at a facility, that's kind of feeding into the local community, that would probably be one that you would look at, it's, you know, I'm sure there are Beyonce fans and Lady Gaga fans in the area. So that's a great opportunity for it. Well, obviously, I'm hoping, and I'm sure everybody also hopes that local businessmen, some of that will spill over into the takings and stuff like that. So it will all benefit the area in that way as well. So

Jamila  31:22  
you just need to convince spurs that aqua therapy is really good for their players, and they need a swimming pool.

Paul  31:30  
(laughs) That would be a great idea. I mean, you know, I often think to myself, that I know, that a lot of these sports, you know, football clubs, in particular, when you see that kind of money that's kind of washing around in the sport today. And you kind of often think to yourself, if they were if somebody there, somebody at that club, who had a bit of a community based idea, there is so much they could do, given the amount?

Jamila  31:57  
I think they do, like they do,

Paul  31:59  
they do. That's what I'm saying. But I think it could be so much more, because I just think that there are so many things that, don't require a huge amount of money. But could with a little bit of money become something that the you know, the local community could, you know, like really tap into and use, but I kind of feel it sometimes that, you know, I'm not gonna say lip service, because I think that's definitely denigrating what they do. But I don't feel that they go far enough. You know, when you look at, I don't know, what is it? A billion pounds they've spent on building that stadium? It's, you know, there's money around, you know, I mean, if they was to set aside, I don't know how, you know, like, even a couple of weeks wages of some of their top players, they would, they could, you know, run probably 20 or 30 local projects for at least a year, you know, I mean, I don't know how, you know, it's, it's easy to say on the outside looking in, but it may not necessarily be as easy to do that from the inside looking out, you know, I mean,

Jamila  32:59  
okay, so thank you very much for this interview. All the best with your fight about reopening, Tottenham green pool.

Paul  33:08  
We'll keep going. Well, you know, sometimes, you know, you have organizations that take a lickin and keep on ticking. I think we're one of those you know, I mean, we we been here before and we've come out the other side and we'll do it again this time.

Jamila  33:21  
Thank you. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this. In the show notes. I will link the website. They are on Instagram, but I would say they're probably most active on Twitter so it's quite good to follow them there. okay. And happy swimming everyone if you can find an open swimming pool that is chlorinated at the right level. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, learned something new, and let that Tottenham love grow. Take care. And until next time, bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai