TALENTED sporting kids in North Yorkshire are going to stand a better chance of reaching the top.

A new initiative designed to bring out the best in gifted youngsters, coaches and clubs was launched at Bootham School, York.

National Lottery cash has been filtered down via Sport England to North Yorkshire Active Sports who bid for cash to fund the first phase of its

five-year programme.

Three sports will initially benefit from the £119,000 cheque which David Gent, Sport England's Regional Director presented to North Yorkshire Active Sports - rugby union, basketball and hockey.

Other sports in the county to get cash support in coming years will be cricket, netball and girls football (all in 2002/03) and rugby league, athletics, swimming and tennis in 2003/04. Sport England have ring-fenced £50million to be distributed nationally over the five years to 45 "sports partnerships".

NYAS is one of those partnerships which has received the backing of all the county's local councils and the relevant national sporting bodies.

Some 25 of North Yorkshire's top clubs, who already have significant youth programmes in place, have been nominated by their governing body to benefit from the first injection of cash.

They are: York, York RI, Selby, Harrogate, Ripon, Malton and Norton, Scarborough, Whitby, Thirsk, Northallerton, Skipton, Wharfedale, North Ribblesdale and Wensleydale (all rugby union); York Vikings, Scarborough Seahawks Thirsk Vikings, Harrogate Raiders and Knaresborough Royals (basketball); and City of York, Harrogate, Scarborough, Thirsk, Northallerton and Richmondshire (hockey).

Around 2,500 youngsters will initially benefit from the first round of funding that will develop 26 coaching courses and 34 tournaments.

Andy Gair, Active Sports manager for North Yorkshire Sport said: "The announcement of this money is an exciting new beginning for youth sport in this region.

"This is real change that will improve real lives and create real success stories, so watch this space for our future national champions."

In North Yorkshire it is proposed to set up county-wide school hockey leagues for Under 13 and Under 15 boys and girls.

Rugby union has targeted Under 11 coaching programmes over ten weeks at the clubs in the above list.

Girls in Secondary Schools will also get the chance to benefit from similar coaching.

The four listed basketball clubs will also get a ten-week coaching programme to improve their skills.

The most talented youngsters will move into development squads in a stepping stone to regional talent camps, to be based in Sheffield, and national honours.

Gent said: "It is about every single child getting the chance to be as good as they possibly can be.

"It is a local initiative which is not driven from London. It is about working together."

Coach Dave Smith of the York and District Basketball Forum, said that the current method of talent-spotting in sport was poor and the new scheme would make it easier to unearth the top youngsters and also improve coaches, many of whom had not updated their own skills for years.

He cited the example of York's England under 14 basketball atar Donna Smith, who originally slipped through the coaching net.

She learned her skills as a ten-year-old by joining in with the boys' matches at Rowntree Park.

"She was an accident of talent and that should not happen," said Smith.

"Generally, our talent identification is poor."

That should be a thing of the past when the new scheme gets firmly established.

Each of the county's seven district and borough councils and City of York Council have also chipped money into the new scheme.

Updated: 10:32 Saturday, December 01, 2001