WESPA was created out of necessity. I was privileged and proud to have represented England at a youth level and been a professional rugby player for top premier league teams. However representing England was down to 80% natural talent and ONLY 20% influenced by expert off field training and conditioning. In today's world sports science and technology has flipped the balance and although talent will always prevail, 50-50 is now the split. I believe that for any young person to be the best they can be and ultimately achieve their optimum sporting potential, training environment is paramount. Being surrounded by proven international experts in all key areas is the key to success and ultimately this will translate over time into improved Olympic successes.

My driving motivation to bring this level of learning into the pre-teenage groups was centred around my daughter's natural sporting ability, and giving her the opportunity to become world class. Sadly my eldest daughter (now 19) who's sporting potential was world class at 12yrs as measured on the track, slipped year-on-year as the coaching environment around her just didn't have the expertise, experience or indeed interest to want to develop her natural incredible skill-sets.

Securing any form of funding support to even start this programme was impossible and therefore I made the decision to resign from my salaried sporting position to give a 100% time to developing and launching this programme. This of course was a significant sacrifice as I was embarking on a zero salary. Fast forwarding to where we are now, we have a WESPA HQ providing training facilities for all ages and abilities including an outreach Olympic Inspirational and Talent ID Programme that works with over a hundred primary schools here on the Wirral. All WESPA programmes are tailored to ensure that the young athletes are developed holistically in addition to their speed, power and strength ensuring their skills can be transferred to a multi sporting platform. WESPA started as a seed and has grown in to a tree with many branches and the plan is to have a forest!

WESPA WIRRAL is currently working with 211 gifted and talented youngsters who are achieving great successes in many disciplines. The programmes we offer are extensive including WESPA Primary Talent Squads (plyometric led), Strength & Conditioning for WESPA Podium (international level), Excel (regional level) and Perform (county level) athletes (11-18yrs) and WESPA Football Programmes. We also have WESPA FIRE Netball & Athletics Teams both affiliated to the respective National Governing Bodies.

It has taken two years to build and develop these pathways with little or no funding. Imagine what we could do with funding to grow the programme and replicate it to other areas across the country. Every child should have an opportunity to be the best they can be and for some, fulfilling an Olympic dream can be realised with the support of a WESPA facility/programme in their area.

Take a look at the Winter Olympics where we achieved five medals. How many competitors did we send versus how many could we have sent if they had been trained at a WESPA facility from an early age? When you answer this question the hard facts are that we don’t have clear pathways nor physical coaching support programmes to improve these stats and furthermore, sustain them. For a child to become a future Olympian takes determination, sacrifice, commitment, dedication with the best support network around them. Eating the right foods at the right times with enough rest/sleep and mindset conditioning are fundamental needs that frankly (in the main) are not available until an athlete makes a funded world-class programme at 18+. They equally need to have parents that will drive them to and from venues for training and competition with excessive costs. If we want to achieve greater successes on the world stage then we need to be investing in our youngster from a far earlier age.

The rate of childhood obesity is on the increase at an alarming rate, this leads to other life threateningly diseases to include Type II diabetes and chronic heart doses and all of this plays a toll on the individuals mental health However there is an easy solution. Get more children active and include their parents and educate them in terms of eating healthy, exercising and getting the right amount of sleep and keep hydrated. At WESPA every one is on board with this, they have a greater understanding of the damage that sugar and salt have on the body, they know the importance of a training programme and they are investing in their own future to be the best because they are surrounded by the best.

There is a small cost for each athlete who is invited onto a WESPA programme however the overall costs including WESPA HQ and local council venue hire (for WESPA's own Netball and Athletics squads) are significant. WESPA receives no public funding from any source and now having proven incredible results in less than 2-years, we are now ready to replicate WESPA WIRRAL across the country.

WESPA is a life changing sporting programme with a business model that a gifted and talented child to develop holistically on a pathway to success.

WESPA has already proven to be life changing and has delivered seemingly impossible results WESPA in less than 2-years. We now require funding to develop further and grow the WESPA FIRE Netball & Athletics offerings to allow more age groups and schools to participate and benefit from the programmes.

Please can you help.