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

38 Bring back Evans built up a level of confidence with ITV and sponsors and, to my relief, was rejected by 13 votes to 8. Initially, Bill Evans’ working group made speedy progress but then became bogged down in issues of detail. The core question of the makeup of the managing Council continued to dominate and some of the specialist interest groups started to get into the act, wanting representation. The depth of feeling came to the surface at the October 1988 meeting of the General Committee of the AAA when much of the meeting was taken up with arguments over the composition of the BAF Council. The Evans working group had initially suggested four votes each for the North, Midlands and South and five for the English AAA, giving a total of seventeen for “England” against eleven for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales combined. This proposal was actually carried by 13 votes to 11 but Derek Johnson stated that the South would not accept it. There was then a suggestion that the vote had not been properly counted and a re-vote was demanded; which resulted in a 13–13 tie. Chairman Bill Ferguson decided that, in such circumstances, he would not use his casting vote so the matter was not settled. Feelings continued to simmer and the December 1988 AGM was an acrimonious affair with Bill Lucas, speaking for the Southern Counties, claiming that Ferguson had deliberately not used his casting vote in order to delay the introduction of the BAF. John Rodda, respected athletics writer for the Guardian newspaper, could see what was going on. He wrote: “The Amateur Athletic Association is going to fight to the end to prevent David Bedford and Derek Johnson gaining control of British athletics. After four hours of sniping during the AAA‟s annual meeting, from the Southern Counties Association and its many supporters on the one hand.....” A further twist of the political knife came at the January 1989 meeting of the General Committee, the first one after the 1988 AGM. Prior to the January 1989 meeting of the General Committee, the Southern Counties challenged the right of General Secretary Mike Farrell to vote as an officer because he was a paid employee. This had never been questioned since Farrell had been appointed in 1982 and he was naturally upset by what he saw as a slur. Legal advice was sought on whether Farrell