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

76 MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES The establishment of the AAA in 1880 had been at the instigation of a few enlightened Oxford University undergraduates and the pattern of management by honorary officials that they instituted continued for decades to follow. Even as the sport had developed, in Britain as in the rest of the world, into the principal element of the Olympic Games and international matches and championships had proliferated, the amateur ethos, in management as in competition, ruled supreme. After the Second World War, a generation of gifted and energetic administrators emerged to take the sport forward. Those such as Olympic champions Lord Burghley (Marquis of Exeter) and Harold Abrahams were giants on the domestic and international stages and were followed by the equally capable Arthur Gold, Marea Hartman and others. The AAA was structured in a manner common to many sporting organisations with a President at the top of the tree alongside an honorary secretary and an honorary treasurer. A General Committee composed of the officers and representatives of regional and specialist interests would meet infrequently to deliberate and decide upon policy matters and then there would be multiple committees to deal with the detail of managing a national sport. All these groups would consist of elected honorary members. The BAAB was similarly structured but tailored to its international and other responsibilities. Even though, over time, an office had been established and some professional appointments made, notably the employment of professional national coaches, the power remained with the honorary officials. Within the AAA, the various committees were virtually independent fiefdoms, answering to the General Committee which met only a few times per year. The officers had considerable influence but even they did not actually have the power to command. It is, perhaps, remarkable that such structures managed, for so long, to survive and prosper and the fact that they did is a tribute to the