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

47 The home straight? we mean to give the federation our fullest support ”. He had proposed a transfer of at least £1 million when reserves were much smaller. Bill Evans, chairing the meeting, was visibly shocked by the response. As a counter to my proposal, David Bedford proposed transferring £½m to BAF with the AAA of England keeping the rest and making up any deficit during the first five years. But Geoff Clarke, an accountant, agreed that BAF would not be able to operate on only £½m. And so it went on, in a tense and often angry argument over money. Some of the English members of the committee had held a prior meeting and were evidently set on keeping as much as possible of the accumulated funds regardless of the effect on the BAF. With a majority of votes they could get their way and this they did, with the concession that to the £½m proposed by David Bedford could be added half any surplus made in the year to September 1991 and the amount of a development fund, which stood at around £500,000 but was ring fenced for specific purposes and not available to cover general costs. And, finally, the AAA of England offered to provide a financial guarantee to BAF for the first fifteen years of its life. The BAF eventually opened for business on 1 st October 1991 with a starting capital of £1.2m, one million less than I had suggested. Of this, the ring fenced development fund accounted for £532,000 and £200,000 had been placed in its charitable arm, the British Athletic Foundation. The AAA of England retained £1.4m out of which it paid £100,000 to the Welsh AAA. So the BAF’s basic capital was only just over half a million pounds. As John Rodda put it, “ BAF TO START WITH A LIMP ”