British athletics clubs are the breeding ground and pathway for all of our
international athletes and through them have come every single British medallist
and world record holders since athletics has been organised.
February 2010 may well go down as a defining moment when
athletic clubs finally began to succumb to the effect of falling numbers in both
athletes and volunteers. While the athletic stock is well below the levels of a
decade ago the most critical area is that of volunteer coaches, team managers
and in particular officials who between them maintain and develop a continuous
stock of athletic talent.
It has long been recognised that many of the leading athletic
clubs are sustained by a handful of ageing officials many of whom are now old
age pensioners. Some clubs have been fortunate enough to find younger officials
but the majority are not so fortunate. This month has brought several cases of
clubs who have been unequal to the struggle and have reduced activities or in
one case disbanded altogether.
Here are some examples:
Redhill and Surrey Beagles AC, who can trace their roots
back 79 years, voted last week to disband due to lack of personnel able to
continue operations. The club was financially strong and will distribute its
cash assets to four local clubs. Over the years it has produced a number of
excellent track and field athletes as well as good road and cross country. Its
home track at Battlebridge will in all probability be closed.
Border Harriers, have at this same moment in time
announced their decision to withdraw from membership of the British Athletics
League. As recently as 2005 Border were in the Premiership of the BAL and was
one of the top 10 clubs in the Country, flying the flag for the North West of
England. In recent years they have struggled to find anybody willing to take on
the task of senior men’s track and field team manager. This problem has
bedevilled them over recent years and in 2009 they failed to register Higher
Competition Athletes by the end of March deadline. As a result their
performances suffered and they were relegated to Division 2 of the BAL. The fact
that they fulfilled their 2009 obligations was due to a previous team manager
coming out of retirement to support them.
Border’s decision to withdraw from the BAL is a bold and
sensible one. The alternative would be a lingering and costly decline.
Rugby and Northampton AC, too, appear to be reducing
their activities as they will not continue to enter a team in the UK Women’s
Athletics League in 2010. This is a well organised large club with a good
complement of well qualified officials. However reluctance of some key athletes
to undertake the travel commitments necessary in National League competition saw
Rugby and Northampton AC relegated into Division 3, which has culminated in a
decision by the club to withdraw from the UKWAL.
ABAC Comment. Anyone involved with grass roots athletics
will not be surprised by these events. Many more clubs will have to take tough
decisions as to whether they can keep going in the next few years as older track
and field officials, team managers and coaches retire and fewer senior athletes
remain.
ABAC contends the powers that have controlled our sport over
the last 12 years have been deliberately blind to the true state of our sport.
There has been a mass delusion perpetrated that the sport has more active
athletes, more active coaches and more active officials than in reality exist.
Recent feel-good, costly, and subjective surveys by the
quangos have not identified the real problems as to why there is a massive drop
off in the sport from the over 18’s (which continues to decline through to the
late 20’s) together with a decrease in senior standards when this is the crucial
age group that supplies our international and Olympic teams.
ABAC calls for a proper independent and expert analysis of
the true state of our sport. We ask Sport England to commission a truly unbiased
analysis of athletics over recent years with the aim of quantifying objectively
where we are.
The "feel good" media department of the National Governing
Body, UKA Ltd., (a private limited company, set up and funded by the
government’s quango, UK Sport, unelected and wholly unaccountable to the sport
it was remitted to run) has spun promotional blarney which purports to show a
thriving sport when in fact it is dying.
The road running boom that still continues has been used by
UK Athletics to deliberately conceal the parlous state of track and field
athletics. UKA's deception seems to have been swallowed by Sport England who
seem blissfully unaware of the true state of mainstream athletics.
Many consider that the athletics network initiative is an
attempt by England Athletics to bring about de facto mergers of the shrinking
track and field clubs.
It is difficult to understand why road running receives any
government funding at all. The sport is very prosperous and the participants,
mostly 30+ are largely comparatively wealthy.
This rose tinted view must be put to one side and an
independent audit should be immediately carried out before we enter the last two
crucial years prior to London’s Olympic Games.
