I 5 www.sport.ox.ac.ukJon Roycroft, Director of Sport, said: 'We are delighted that after a lot of hard work by the University we have secured the planning permission we need to make the urgent updates needed to our facilities. There will be a lot of hard work involved in securing the funding for the project, requiring the generous support of our alumni, sports governing bodies and the commercial sector, but the results will completely transform the face of sport here, with the benefits being felt by students, staff and the local community.' In addition to a new indoor Tennis Centre, for which planning permission was granted last year, the plans will involve a complete redevelopment of the cramped indoor cricket school and aged grandstand. Both of these structures will be demolished and combined into a new grandstand complex. This will allow a full-length run-up for indoor cricket for the first time, along with a viewing platform looking out over the famous Bannister track, and space for many other sports.The plans also feature a new sports hall, considerably increasing the indoor space available, including a much improved gym. The new complex will address the chronic lack of indoor space for playing sport- currently there is just one small indoor hall for over 20,000 students and 10,000 staff. There is simply not enough space for all of the clubs who need to use the Iffley Road facilities. Today Oxford boasts one of the most diverse ranges of sports offered by any university - 84 in total. Considered alongside the huge demands from College sport, the massive growth in women's sport, and the general need to help our students and staff lead healthy, active lifestyles, it is clear that a new, modern solution is desperately required.Perhaps the biggest impact of the redevelopment will be on our disabled students. Currently, there is very limited disability access to the facilities at Iffley Road. We need to ensure that this is rectified as a matter of urgency, enabling our disabled students to participate in the same way as any other student at Oxford.If you would like to find out more about the future of Iffley Road and how you can help us to achieve this, go to www.campaign.ox.ac.uk/sport or contact Andrew Thomas, andrew.thomas@devoff.ox.ac.uk, Head of Development - Sport.The current facilities at Iffley Road were mainly built in 1966, a historic year for British Sport. As we fast approach this generation's iconic sporting occasion, the London 2012 Olympics, Oxford Sport stands to make its mark once again. Proposed Grandstand ComplexThe facilities as they stand today

6 I OXFORD UNIVERSITY I SPORTS REVIEW 2010 www.sport.ox.ac.uk2009-10 marks the tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Oxford University Sports Federation.HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE SPORTS FEDERATION!Ten years on from the foundation of our Sports Federation, the current President discovers how it all began.For ten years the Federation has provided central administration and student representation for all Oxford athletes, witnessing hundreds of Varsity victories, 12 sabbatical Presidents in office, the founding of numerous new highly motivated sports clubs, the building of a new pool at Iffley Road and, more recently, the planning approval for the new Iffley Road redevelopment plan. To celebrate the past decade of the Sports Federation I sat down with the inspirational and busy Director of Sport, Jon Roycroft, to talk about the ideas behind the successful Oxford sport set-up and the first founding years of the Federation.The original idea came to Jon in 1997, after his first year in Oxford, during his input to the University's Review of Sport. Jon recognized the independent nature of the Oxford sports clubs, loosely based on the College set-up, and the challenges with that "leading to all sorts of issues with inefficient use of resources, no cost savings through bulk purchasing and importantly a non-professional outlook on how sport should be run." For the clubs to be able to develop and grow there would have to be a central administrative support service - a system that our rivals at Cambridge still completely lack. Jon was also very determined to ease the administrative "I REALLY QUESTION WHETHER SPORTS CLUBS COULD COPE WITH THE NUMBER OF COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS WITHOUT SPORTS FEDERATION HELP."INTERVIEW WITH JON ROYCROFT