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

31 The McAllister Plan Writing in the Sunday Times , Cliff Temple observed that “ The hyperactive Southern Counties AAA, urged on by the former Olympic athletes Dave Bedford and Derek Johnson, are strongly opposing McAllister‟s plan because they contend it will remove so much influence from the regions .” Temple went on to say that, “ Sadly, the whole issue has been turned by the South, led by Bedford and Johnson, into the same type of direct confrontation which they have been staging for years with the existing administration because of their involvement with the International Athletes‟ Club .” Because of the level of animosity and public comment that had been generated, McAllister, fearing a technical slip up, even felt it necessary to get written legal advice on the procedures and conduct of the meeting. Usually the President (McAllister) would chair an EGM but as he was the author of the proposals to be voted on, the chairman of the General Committee, Bill Ferguson, was to chair the meeting in his place. McAllister made the case for his plan and I, as the treasurer, was called upon to second the proposal. I had found myself in rather a dilemma as, in fact, the Southern proposals were akin to those that I had drafted and which had been agreed by the British Athletic League what seemed light years before. My overriding worry, as Treasurer, however, was that, if the issue was not settled quickly, the chances of new TV and marketing contracts would diminish if not disappear. The idea of English control was also seductive as, from a practical point of view, it would effectively continue the AAA’s “caretakership” that, by now, was starting to turn around the commercial and financial fortunes of the sport. Although sympathetic to them from a democratic point of view, I feared that the “six principles” might lead to a return to the old fragmented mismanagement that had got the AAA and BAAB into financial trouble. Ironically, I ended up on the opposite side of the debate to Roger Simons who was the formal proposer of the Southern amendment. We had both served on the Turner Committee that had opted for English, not area, representation but time had moved on, as had the politics. Derek Johnson, in his contribution, argued for the new federation to be formed by an expansion of the AAA; the original BAL proposal.