The introduction of the Sport England strategy in 2008, with the ambition to develop a 'world leading community sports system', offered the opportunity to truly engage grassroots sport delivery with the process of reversing the decline in active sports participation.Unfortunately this opportunity appears to have been missed, with the return to a top down imposition of a 'sport for sport's sake' agenda using unprepared and under resourced National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs) as the agents of management and delivery, a model that has generally not proven to be successful in the past. It would appear, therefore, time to rethink community sports provision and to find alternative methods of delivery to realize the government's ambitious targets relating to 2012 London Olympics legacy. To add to the debate, this article provides a consideration of the provision and delivery of sporting opportunities in the context of a grassroots organization at community level. It discusses whether sports organizations that are controlled and organized locally facilitate and enable individuals to participate and whether they sustain sport and physical activity programmes on behalf of their residents. To adopt this approach would involve utilizing and enhancing the skills of local people in order to sustain and progress the opportunities offered by recruiting coaches, managers and administrators from the local residents. With this structure in place, it would enable all members of the community to volunteer, organize and meaningfully participate in, and contribute to, an innovation designed to promote healthy lifestyles.La aprobación por parte de 'Sport England' de una serie de programas con la ambición de desarrollar 'un deporte de base que sea líder mundial' creó una oportunidad para que el deporte de base y sus estructuras se impliquen en la lucha contra el declive general de los indices de participación deportiva. Por desgracia parece que esta oportunidad no ha sido aprovechada puesto que se ha vuelto a la imposición desde arriba de una política que propugna 'el deporte por el deporte' y que es puesta en marcha por federaciones deportivas nacionales que no están preparadas y no tienen recursos suficientes. Se trata de un modelo y una política que en el pasado no funcionó. Con los Juegos Olímpicos ded 2012, se presenta por lo tanto una oportunidad para analizar las estructuras del deporte local y para encontrar métodos alternativos que puedan hacer realidad los ambiciosos objetivos que el gobierno británico se ha fijado como legado de los Juegos Olímpicos de Londres Para contribuir a dicho debate, este artículo analiza una alternativa a la organizción tradicional del del deporte de base. El artículo considera si las organizaciones deportivas de nivel local son capaces de facilitar la participación en actividades deportivas de los ciudadanos. Una estrategia centrada en el nivel local conseguiría, además, un desarrollo de las capacidades de los residentes locales puesto que sería necesario involucrar a
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.