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

34 Courting the women; will they? won‟t they? Athletic Club. He turned out to be an ideal choice for this delicate role; he was very well liked by the women’s association and his quiet diplomacy and gentle steering of the committee paid handsome dividends. The Steering Committee quickly got down to work and held its first meeting on 18 th July 1987. The leading personality in the Women’s AAA was the long serving (since 1961) Honorary Secretary, Marea Hartman (pictured with Princess Anne), a formidable lady who had devoted her life to athletics and had become one of its best known, most influential and best connected. Professionally, she had held a senior position in the personnel department of the Bowater Group (international paper manufacturers) and spent all her spare time (and probably a lot of her professional time) on athletics. She had moved internationally within the IAAF as one of Britain’s representatives for very many years and had established contacts and friends all over the world. She had a particularly good relationship with the Japanese and was frequently invited to Japan, at their expense, for athletic occasions of all kinds. Domestically, she was also the Honorary Treasurer of the Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and was on excellent personal terms with its President, the Duke of Edinburgh, who was also the President of the BAAB. This position was not exactly onerous as, some years earlier, in 1972, as a result of a deal involving a shift of some responsibilities, the CCPR had obtained from the Sport Council an indefinite guarantee to cover all its reasonable costs. The treasurer’s duties, therefore, were basically to calculate the outgoings at the end of each year and send the bill to the Sport Council. She moved in all the right circles and few decisions were made by the Women’s AAA without the nod from Marea. Parallel with the establishment of the Steering Committee, “cordial discussions” were taking place regarding the possibility of joint AAA-WAAA track and field championships but this was not the change of heart by the women that might be supposed; remember the hilarity at the very idea when it was mooted back in 1975. ITV was criticising the poor quality of the exclusively female championships that were held annually in Birmingham in front of a mainly empty stadium and hinting very strongly that continued TV coverage could not be assumed. ITV wanted a joint