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

130 Epilogue the sport (at all levels) considered the events and the relationship with television to be artificial and unhealthy for the “real” sport. Thus there was, and to some extent remains, a lack of the credibility that the EAA’s championships programme enjoys. The traumas of the creation and eventual demise of the BAF were necessary but poorly managed steps towards the modernisation of athletics in Britain and some good has come from it. At least there are no longer separate organisations for men and women, cross country and road and it is now almost unbelievable that this should ever have been so. It is taken for granted that championships for men and women are held together; why should it have been such a battle to achieve this? The bankruptcy of the BAF was certainly a major shock to the sport but enabled it to implement a far more radical overhaul of its structures than would otherwise have been possible. The reasons for BAF’s failure were essentially that the sport was unstable and unwilling to embrace the changes needed. The clubs had forced the AAA to accept the need to change but the traditionalists never really wanted to give up what they thought was their heritage. The English, in particular, fought a rearguard action throughout and rarely missed an opportunity to undermine the fragile stability of the BAF. They refused to properly fund the BAF at the outset and built up their own funds at BAF’s expense, denying help when the BAF was on the brink of bankruptcy and needed it most. The Celtic nations had gone along with the reforms but with no great enthusiasm and became, not exactly silent, but certainly relatively docile partners within BAF. It was usual that the vast majority of the talking at meetings came from the representatives of the English regions and it was not unknown for some from, say, Scotland or Wales to spend a whole weekend in meetings of the BAF Council and say nothing throughout. I have often wondered why there was also such a level of, frequently personal, animosity at so many meetings and between those representing the different elements of the sport. This had reached a pitch within the AAA and the expectation that relationships would settle down once the BAF was formed was not realised. Most of the members of the Council, Management Board, Regional Associations, etc. were perfectly decent people who had spent their lives devoting endless hours to the sport that they loved but, for reasons that have mystified me, often