Veteran keen to foster young talent

MURRAY WILSON/Manawatu Standard

SHUTTLE SERVICE: Badminton veteran Richard Skarott, who was rewarded for his years of volunteer work at a national and provincial level on Saturday.

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Palmerston North badminton stalwart Richard Skarott hopes more youngsters will take up the game so Manawatu can produce top-level talent.

A New Zealand representative has not been selected from Manawatu since Croydon Rutherford in 1997, who was then controversially axed from the Commonwealth Games team for Kuala Lumpur in 1998 before retiring in 1999.

Former Manawatu junior rep Donna Halliday is in the national squad, but is based in Auckland, where most of the top players head.

Skarott, the Manawatu Badminton Association secretary, said the implementation of a year 5 and 6 competition for primary schoolchildren could create future national players.

"We've had players nationally ranked in the junior levels, then like most good players they tend to migrate [north]," Skarott said.

"It's almost inevitable because there aren't the depth of players around at that level for them to be challenged."

That could change if Manawatu had a large crop of keen kids get involved.

"The general theory is if you've got a bigger base, you've got a better chance of producing something at the top."

Tura Rata has been appointed as the sport's development officer in Manawatu and starts in January.

It is the first time there has been a paid role in Manawatu badminton and Skarott hopes that Rata can attract more players.

A summer super-league runs on Thursday nights at the B & M Centre with 32 teams, including players from Dannevirke. A side from Pahiatua is entering for the second half of the league, which starts at the end of January.

Skarott, 52, knows a thing or two about how to get people to play the game too, having being involved in the sport since the mid-1970s after his family emigrated to Dunedin from England.

On Saturday night in Wellington at the Badminton New Zealand awards, he was named volunteer of the year and given the award for outstanding contribution to badminton.

"It's taken some getting used to; I certainly didn't expect the second one. It was a total surprise. I thought I was in with a reasonable chance on the volunteer's one."

In the past year Skarott has helped with two New Zealand Opens and was an organiser for the under-15 and under-17 North Island championships, which Palmerston North has hosted since 1984.

He was the Manawatu Badminton Association president for 10 years before recently stepping down.

He still plays in the masters division, has four children who have all played and his youngest, Danielle, is an under-13 rep.

Skarott, a computer support worker at the Linton Army Camp, is one of only four New Zealanders who are Oceania-approved line judges and he has been a judge at major events for the past five years.

Manawatu's Greg Busch also holds that qualification.

- © Fairfax NZ News