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

19 The Turner Committee It had been expected that the AAA would not lose any time in calling an EGM to debate the report but, by January 1984, no progress was evident and the campaigners, frustrated, decided to requisition one, as they were entitled to do if they could get the support of 10 per cent of the voting membership of the AAA. Although reluctant to try the patience of club secretaries again, it was felt that there was no option as, otherwise, the AAA would probably delay the whole matter until the 1984 AGM, an unacceptably long time off. So the process of canvassing support started once again and, under pressure, the AAA set a date, 9 th June 1984, for the important EGM. But there was a twist. Despite the existence of a valid requisition from clubs, the AAA’s General Committee seized the initiative by itself calling the EGM and thereby gaining control of the wording of the motions to be considered. The wording of the AAA’s primary motion was: That the Amateur Athletic Association through its General Committee promotes and supports the formation of a new athletic body as “the only National Governing Body for all Amateur Athletics in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland” by the expansion of the constitution and activities of the B.A.A.B to embrace all matters affecting the administration of athletics in the United Kingdom. Whereas this, taken together with subsidiary motions, supported, in general, the proposals of the Turner Committee, there were significant differences. The proposal from the AAA’s General Committee (under the chairmanship of Arthur McAllister, of whom much more, later) was that the single governing body should be a reconstituted BAAB (Turner had recommended an entirely new entity) and that the area associations of the AAA should be included in the managing council (Turner had recommended the four home countries only). This annoyed the campaigners who also saw it as a rearguard action by the diehards who simply did not want any fundamental change. In fact, at the EGM itself, David Bedford baldly stated that “ a vote for the General Committee would be a vote for no change ”. The outcome, following negotiations with the officers of the AAA, was that the original proposals from the AAA, amended slightly, would be