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

60 The business of athletics The JSC was set up simply to manage the commercial events but the overall effect of the huge increase in the monies flowing into athletics was likely to be felt throughout the sport. Expectations were high that funds would be available to do more than ever before to expand and develop; more coaches, more help to clubs, a higher public profile, etc., etc. However, little was done to prepare the general management of the AAA or the BAAB for the anticipated increase in workload. The attitude seemed to be that not much needed to change. As an example, the day to day responsibility for handling the greatly increased amount of money was deputed to a part time clerical assistant who had little book keeping training. The person concerned was, in fact, extremely conscientious, possessed a remarkable degree of common sense and, given her background, did an excellent job. In an attempt to give her professional support, a part time overseeing role was contracted to a qualified accountant whose duties were to maintain the books correctly and prepare the annual accounts. For reasons that I will come to, reconciling the financial figures was a nightmare and our poor, part time, financial manager who had done her best to cope with it described the situation in a lengthy memo dated 1st December 1986 to Mike Farrell, the General Secretary of the AAA, after she had been struggling to finalise the accounting figures to the end of September, as causing “endless complications throughout the year and we need a much clearer and concise way ”. It was hardly surprising that David Cropper, by profession a civil engineer who had been elected to the post only 12 months before and who had inherited this hornet’s nest, should decide that he did not want to continue. Having been elected in his place, I discovered just how bad the situation was when I visited the Francis Street, London, offices of the AAA and the BAAB a few days later. Despite having the professional knowledge to tackle the problem it would take me quite a long time to fully get to the bottom of what had been going on. I quickly realised that not only was the book-keeping system a mess but that, more seriously, there was no effective financial management and costs were running out of control. In my first report to the AAA, dated 5th January 1987, I warned that the AAA-BAAB were “ living beyond their means and in financial danger ” and that a priority should be “ the establishment of satisfactory reserves commensurate with the levels of commitments ”,