Lack of funding may force GB women's softball team to miss out on World Championships
World-class GB softball pitcher Stacie Townsend
The GB Women's Fastpitch Softball Team is ranked No 3 in Europe, but lack of funding means they're unlikely to be competing in the 2012 World Championships in Canada this summer.
The team has to decide in the next three weeks whether it will be able to make the trip - and it all hinges on cash. Preparing for and competing in the championships in Whitehorse will cost around £60,000 - well beyond the budget of the players and volunteer coaches.
All attempts to find sponsorship for the team - currently No 11 in the world, an amazing achievement considering the low-profile of softball in the UK - have failed, another example of female sporting excellence going unacknowledged.
Bob Fromer, who has overseen the GB Women's Softball Team programme as General Manager since 2000, says, 'A wonderful and dedicated group of players has made GB into one of the world's elite softball programmes over the past few years, against all the odds. These players, many of whom will retire after this summer, deserve to play one more time on the World Championship stage. Sadly, it's beginning to look like they won't get the chance.'
Women's fastpitch softball was an Olympic sport from 1996 to 2008, when UK Sport dropped funding for the British team. Since then, players and staff have shouldered most of the costs involved in competing. The GB women's team achieved their best ever result in 2009 when they finished second in the European Championships and qualified for a place at the 2010 World Championships in Venezuela.
The trip to Venezuela was paid for by the players themselves, along with free flights that the team won in a British Airways competition and donations from a British businessman based in Coventry and an American mulit-millionaire from Detroit who both had personal connections with the team.
Money left over from that period helped pay for the GB women's team to take part in the 2011 US World Cup of Softball and qualify for the 2012 World Championships by finishing in the top three at the European Championships in Italy.
Got an idea for how the team can raise the funds for the trip to Whitehorse in Canada? Contact bob.fromer@bsuk.com
