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

37 BRING BACK EVANS The animosity leading up to and surrounding the “McAllister v Southern Counties EGM” on 3 rd July 1988 had attracted widespread condemnation as portraying the administration of a sport in turmoil and needed calming as a matter of urgency. The next opportunity to do this was at the AAA’s General Committee meeting on 30th July at which the outcome of the EGM would be the leading topic. Chairman Bill Ferguson appealed for a greater sense of responsibility and unity. He urged that, with the EGM in the past, the emotive election fever should be allowed to subside and that the AAA should aim to achieve an acceptable constitution for the new federation based on the decision of the clubs. He felt that the pre-EGM campaign had damaged the image of the sport by displaying an open split and that some of the language used in the publicity material “could have been more wisely chosen”. The implications arising from the EGM were the main topic of the meeting and, during the ebb and flow of proposal and counter proposal, one suggestion was that the Southern Counties themselves be given the task of producing a BAF constitution based on the six principles. Bill Evans appealed for sense, saying that to go down that road would lead to unnecessary delays and that the quickest and easiest course would be to amend the McAllister constitution. Bill Evans’ sensible proposal was eventually agreed to and he was asked to chair a new working group to take the task forward. I was extremely worried that this public display of infighting could destabilise the sport’s relationship with its commercial partners and, indeed, those of us who had been given responsibility for handling these matters (Promotions Officer Andy Norman, Financial Controller Malcolm Jones and I) were coming under great pressure, especially from ITV, to assure them that there was a stable management running the sport. It was known that contract renewal negotiations were imminent and, in the heat of the meeting, a proposal was made to enlarge the negotiation group by adding Ewan Murray (BAAB chairman), Marea Hartman (Secretary of the Women’s AAA) and Derek Johnson. This would have undermined the credibility of the three of us who had worked hard to