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

5 The Birth of BAF - Introduction Although the Northern Counties Association had been established the year before, in 1879, the AAA was, if not the first, one of the first national governing bodies of athletics in the world and it set many of the basic rules of the sport that still apply today. In fact, many of the technical specifications such as the heights of hurdles and the weights of throwing implements were set in imperial measurements and simply converted to metric when athletics needed worldwide specifications. Thus, the internationally defined height of the men’s high hurdle is 1.067m, equivalent to 3ft 6inches, and the weight of the men’s shot is 7.26kg which is the nearest equivalent to the British 16lbs. The AAA was established as the governing body of men’s athletics in England. In 1948, the AAA reorganised itself as a limited company and agreed to a request from the Welsh men for the Welsh AAA to be included on the same footing as the existing area associations representing the North, Midlands and South of England, thereby becoming the governing body for England and Wales. Quite independently, equivalent bodies had been established in Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as for women and cross country so that, by the mid 20 th century, athletics in the UK had a plethora of “governing bodies”. This was unsatisfactory to the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) which had been formed in 1913 as the governing body of world athletics and had initially recognised the AAA as Britain’s international representative organisation. In 1931, the Scots made an application to affiliate directly to the IAAF but this was refused and, as a result, the British Amateur Athletic Board (BAAB) was formed in 1932 as a hybrid organisation to represent the then eight principal British governing bodies (AAA, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; men and women separately in each case) as the UK member of the IAAF. This arrangement continued for many years although, from time to time, there were calls for rationalisation. The first serious attempt at modernisation was initiated at the 1960 AGM of the AAA when newly elected treasurer Phil Gale urged “ the immediate reorganisation of British athletics, with a United Kingdom AAA replacing the four governing bodies – the AAA, Scottish AAA, Northern Ireland AAA and Women‟s AAA ”. The proposal was carried but the other three bodies all emphatically stated that “ they were fully satisfied with the existing arrangement and would not support a change ”