Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

6 The Birth of BAF - Introduction A few years on the AAA was deeply in the red, the Annual Report for 1966/67 stating baldly that “ bankruptcy is a very real threat ”. Against this background, a further attempt to rationalise the sport was made and resulted in the establishment of a committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Byers, a Liberal Peer, “to examine the problems of the sport‟s development and to make recommendations”. The Byers Committee reported in 1968 and, prior to its publication, the then Minister for Sport, Labour’s Denis Howell, gave an interview to Tony Ward that was published in the Sunday Times . In a wide ranging discussion, Howell underlined the importance to Britain’s reputation that athletics should be a successful sport but was critical of its administration. He said that he found the athletics structure “ baffling and complex and more professional administration is needed”. The Byers committee had come to similar conclusions and reported in unequivocal terms – “We are of the opinion that the administration of British athletics needs a thorough overhaul. Firstly we find the case for one governing body for athletics in the UK to be proved beyond doubt and, secondly, we recommend that a new administrative organisation headed by a „Director of British Athletics‟ be established.” Nothing happened. In 1981, a new Minister for Sport, Conservative Neil Macfarlane, took office and was initially “ uncertain about the way in which athletics was organised ”. He was, however, “ astonished to discover that there were no less than nineteen organisations (including, in those days, Tug-of-War) which had what must be regarded as a controlling interest in the sport ” and formed the opinion that “ with authority so fragmented, there was a danger that the best interests of athletics would be bypassed ”. He decided to set up an investigation, ostensibly into the finances of athletics, under the chairmanship of Dickie Jeeps, chairman of the Sports Council, and this was announced on 24 November 1982. The AAA did not take kindly to the proposed investigation into its own affairs and felt that the committee should focus on the BAAB as the entity that effectively depended on Sports Council grants whereas the AAA did not. The AAA was also in the process of setting up its own committee to consider the establishment of one governing body for the UK and would