LAST month, the Great North Run attracted over 70,000 runners and included the 1,000,000th finisher in the event’s history.
LAST month, the Great North Run attracted over 70,000 runners and included the 1,000,000th finisher in the event’s history. It will be remembered for this milestone and the fact that Mo Farah won. The same weekend, Lewis Hamilton won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, and local girl Kyla Birdseye was racing her MG Metro around the beautiful parkland circuit at Oulton Park in Cheshire. Meanwhile, football fans around the UK were travelling to all corners of the land to watch their teams play. Now, whether you are an elite athlete or a fun-runner in the North East, a Grand Prix fan or Kyla’s family and friends, or one of thousands of obsessively loyal fans of the beautiful game, these sporting events are an opportunity to experience new places beyond the immediate scope of the sporting action. The Great North Run has boosted the local tourist economy to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. People are using the event as a reason to visit, staying for the weekend or even a few days more. This trend is being seen across every area of sporting activity. Organised trips to Grand Prix are now widely available. Kyla’s family booked a self-catering short break in a six-bedroom cottage, half an hour’s drive from the circuit. A family from Wellingborough, life-long supporters of the Cobblers, have six weekends away booked throughout the season to watch Northampton Town play in such exotic locations as Exeter, Southend, Plymouth, Carlisle, Morecambe and Bury. For one avid follower of the NFL, I’m planning a few days away in late November to watch the Miami Dolphins take on the New York Jets, in New York, on 1 December. Whatever your sporting passions happen to be, combining them with a trip away will add to the experience, whether here in the UK, Europe, or anywhere in the world. 2015 sees England’s cricket team tour the Caribbean. The British Lions Rugby team will tour New Zealand in 2017. These trips take a degree of planning, so you should start now. Sit down and discuss what’s going on with your sport, your team, your bucket list must-do sporting event. After all we do say that everything starts with a conversation…………