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

33 COURTING THE WOMEN; WILL THEY? WON’T THEY? It will be recalled, when I was describing the early efforts to persuade the AAA and Women’s AAA towards reform, that, back in April 1983, the Women’s AAA had been pushed by their member clubs into conducting a postal survey on the proposition that there should be a UK single governing body. The responses were overwhelmingly in favour and, accordingly, the Women’s AAA, in November 1983, set up its own working group to study the matter. The working group conducted its investigation along lines similar to the Turner Committee and came to similar conclusions. Its report was completed in March 1985 and accepted at the 1986 AGM of the Women’s AAA. The report even hinted at the possibility of a merger with the AAA to produce a single English Association and recommended that the existing joint AAA-WAAA Working Party, that had been established to find ways of closer co-operation, be replaced by a joint steering group charged with working “ to establish a joint English Executive Council ”. The Women’s AAA did not foresee an outright amalgamation of the two associations but rather that an umbrella executive would co-ordinate their activities and the AAA and WAAA would continue in existence. This was not the full step envisaged by many but was going in the right direction. Accordingly, the Women’s AAA wrote to the AAA to suggest the joint steering group and, at its meeting on 30 th May 1987, the General Committee of the AAA agreed. In fact, the committee that was created rejoiced in the name of “Joint Steering Committee into the amalgamation of the Women’s AAA and AAA”, implying rather more of a commitment than had been suggested by the women. It was swiftly agreed that each association should be represented on the Steering Committee by eight persons (a mixture of officers, regional and specialist interests) and that an independent chairman be sought who would be acceptable to all. That person emerged in the figure of John De’Ath, a retired Air Commodore who was currently the Home Bursar at Jesus College, Oxford. John De’Ath had been involved in athletics for 40 odd years, as an athlete and then as a leading figure in RAF athletics, serving six years as chairman of the RAF Athletic Association. After retiring from the RAF and taking up his position in Oxford, he became involved in the University