hen people think about Cambridge sport certain images come to their minds – the Boat Race, the Varsity match at Twickenham – symbols of a sporting tradition that goes back hundreds of years. The prestige attached to such events is well-deserved and inextricably linked with the history of the University.

But what about the sports we don’t hear about, the basketball players, the modern pentathletes? Is the reality of Cambridge sport quite as rosy away from the spotlight?

The principal problem for the smaller sports clubs at the University is their funding. Each club is individually assessed by the Sports Syndicate, who analyse the nature of the club and therefore the amount of funding that the club should receive accordingly. However, the grants handed out are, in the words of one captain, "woefully insufficient". For instance, the women’s basketball team receives a yearly grant of £1,600. The annual court hire alone comes to £3,503 before you even begin to think about travel, equipment or numerous other necessities. The difficulty of the situation is clear.

The problem has its root in success of the major sports. The Boat Club annually receives highly advertised television coverage and so is able to command sponsorship fees far beyond the reach of many other clubs. The Rugby Club similarly manages to attract extensive sponsorship, both in the form of direct cash funding and also from donated stash and other products. They even have an employed head of marketing who can organise these benefits. The upshot of this is that the major clubs remain separate from the rest of the University sporting body in order to control their own finances. This means that all of the money they bring in goes straight back to their coffers, funding luxuries far beyond other clubs’ means.

Economically this is defensible: if one club is a huge source of revenue why should their efforts not benefit them directly? However, each club plays its part in the wider sporting success of the University. Of course it is not the responsibility of the Boat Club to look after the table tennis players, but surely a more centralised system should be overseeing both. Nobody would claim that every sport should receive the same amount of funding, but surely some sort of independent calculation would be a fairer system.

As for the current financial problems for the smaller clubs, it would be too simplistic to say that the Sports Syndicate should simply be handing out more money, although the fact that the available funds for many clubs have dropped since last year is a cause for concern. While it is clearly not viable for the Sports Syndicate to match the economic needs of every club, it is important not to leave some clubs struggling while others prosper. The Syndicate must not leave clubs behind.

There is of course an obligation for the clubs themselves to find sponsorship., but for many this is not an easy task. The archery club has spent the last year searching for sponsors but, not being a spectator sport it has been unable to find any. This has resulted in many members of the club spending over £1,000 of their own money each year.

The main burden on clubs’ finances is the renting of facilities. Cambridge teams find themselves at a huge disadvantage in that there is no centralised University Sports Centre like those of Oxford or Durham, offering hugely reduced rental rates. Independent centres like Kelsey Kerridge quite rightly charge at private rates, but the clubs struggle to meet these. The modern pentathletes went to Oxford last weekend where the pool was rented from the University Sports Centre free of charge, whereas when Cambridge hold a meeting this December they will have to spend over £100 for an hour’s swimming.

The problem is not one which has gone unnoticed. The Cambridge Sport website has extensive plans for the West Cambridge Sports Centre, a project intended to solve these problems. Unfortunately the project began in 1998 and however wonderful the plans look the lack of progress is harming the sporting reputation of our University. The money that teams would save on facility rental would go towards equipment and more importantly coaches which are currently unavailable. The lack of a sports centre is especially hindering teams that play indoors, and the longer the project is postponed, the lower the standard of sport will be when it finally appears.

The truth of the matter is that many of our clubs find their funding principally from the members themselves, a system almost tailor-made to discourage people from joining up. Until the facilities other universities enjoy are made available and the financial burden is lifted from those clubs unable to command large sponsorship fees, then the standard of Cambridge’s sport is only going to suffer.