ABSTRACT
Partnership working has become ubiquitous as a modus operandi across all sports development sectors. Not just representing a way of working, partnerships have been established as an important structure in the design and delivery of sports development policies and programmes. Although partnerships and partnership working are not necessarily new to sports development practice (Thilbault et al. 1999; Babiak 2007; Lindsey 2009), their current importance is demonstrated in a variety of recent sports development policy documents. In England, for example, national policy has called for the ’creation of effective partnerships at every level to deliver for and through sport’ (Sport England 2004: 18).
