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

40 Bring back Evans approval. By the early summer of 1989, enough progress had been made for the first draft of a BAF constitution to be circulated to all member clubs of the AAA and constituent members of the BAAB for comment. But, although the general concept was acceptable politically, the financial arrangements had not even been discussed let alone agreed and there was still the tricky subject of the practical management of the new body to be worked out. This would prove to be far from plain sailing. Having ousted Bill Ferguson as chairman, the South now had two of the principal officers who were sympathetic to their views but apparently saw me as less easy to be persuaded. As the only one of the leading group with professional financial qualifications as well as management experience, I realised the importance of establishing BAF as an efficient, well financed, organisation even if this took longer to achieve. This was interpreted as opposition to the project, which it absolutely was not, so they decided to get rid of me also. Accordingly, in the run up to the following (1989) AGM, the Welsh AAA, supported by the Southern Counties, nominated the Welsh Treasurer, Dr Hedydd Davies, to oppose me. I had already been nominated for re- election as Honorary Treasurer by the Midland Counties AAA and by numerous clubs but it was also the prerogative of the General Committee to make nominations and this it proceeded to do at its meeting on 21 October 1989. Derek Johnson and David Bedford led an attack on me and the vote went 13:12 in favour of Davies. I walked out of the meeting in disgust. A curiosity of the General Committee at that time was that two minor elements of the sport, Tug of War and Race Walking, were each entitled to send a representative with a vote. Thus these two votes sometimes held the balance of power and were often courted by protagonists, as happened on this occasion. Ironically, in the morning of the same day, there had been a joint meeting of the AAA and the BAAB to receive a report on the negotiations for a new television contract with ITV. As I shall describe in Part ll, these negotiations had been extremely difficult and had been conducted by Andy Norman, Malcolm Jones and me. Andy Norman and I had made the presentation to the meeting and were able to report that a satisfactory offer had eventually been negotiated.