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The Sport England tanks are on the lawn of the oldest sporting association in the world. The Amateur Athletic Association of England, formed 125 years ago, and with the Queen as its patron, is under attack. England Athletics is a new quango, funded by Sport England under the banner of uniformity, and will be imposed on the sport from April 2006 to replace the AAA’s.
Achievement at the highest level in athletics requires that the Athlete be capable of breaking a world record. As every sports fan knows, trying to identify such a talent 10 or 15 years in advance, is a futile objective. Were it possible, football would have led the way with enormous transfer fees for 15 year olds. The essence of sport demands that the talent emerges naturally through effort and integrity. Investing £20 million pounds of tax payers money to buy an Olympic Champion is as hopeful as booking a holiday based on the purchase of a lottery ticket.
To discard the historic AAA's of England in this quest for Olympic glory, can only be likened to trying to win the football world cup by closing down the Football Association, and casting the Premier League and the clubs into the wilderness.
For Football, Rugby and Cricket, it is possible to establish a marketing machine to persuade supporters that they are watching the best the world has ever seen. Athletics is not so fickle. The times and the measurements are unequivocal. The watching public are not so easily fooled.
UK Sport imposed our current governing body UK Athletics in 1997. The first thing UK Athletics did was cut off the fuel supply of money to the clubs. They needed to ensure it was not being wasted! In the name of transparency, they kept it all to themselves and sprouted many lucrative new jobs. The sport became ill. UK Athletics then cut off the oxygen of publicity for fear that others would see the decline. Stage managed, and meaningless Grand Prix events were promoted. Mass participation events like the Great North Run were projected as being athletics.
In 1997, UK Sport gave birth to UK Athletics. In 2005, Sport England are now in labour with England Athletics.
After subjecting the sport to 7 years of starvation, and suffocation the Sports Councils now act as though the sport of athletics is already dead. Sir Andrew Foster, the one time head of the audit commission was asked by UK Sport and Sport England to conduct an independent review into athletics. The outcome of this independent review must have been music to the ears of the commissioning quangos, because it dovetailed precisely with their plans for the other favoured sports who are doomed to receive the same assistance. Sir Andrew Foster suggested a "fresh start". An alternative structure should be created in the image of the Sports Quangos themselves. High performance centres will nurture the talent within the 9 administrative regions of England, which in turn will feed the elite athletes into an expensive High Performance Programme.
In the same way that the passion for teaching is overwhelmed by the comprehensive school structure, the passion for athletics will be crushed in the new sporting quango structure. I was given a glimpse of the inside of a high performance centre when a young athlete coached by myself was invited to attend a training day. I left that high performance centre in Twickenham haunted by the vision of blood dripping from the ears of children, in the name of science. The children smiled as they damped down their ears with blood soaked tissues. Every drop of blood represented to the young athletes, a reduction in the effort that would be required on their journey towards an Olympic Gold Medal. They were subconsciously being offered a comfortable pathway to sporting success. The running machines with face masks, the highly qualified coaches, the nutritionist, the masseur, the never ending attention all conspire to create the illusion that the athlete need only sit back and relax on the conveyor belt to success. "You wouldn't be here unless you were already good" the children were told.
It is naive, and it represents the inevitable failure of a top-down structure which has taken that great mantra of education, education, education, and has delivered it as coaching, coaching, coaching. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Athletics and Running Clubs who understand the nature of the folly which is being imposed on the sport, are urged to attend the AAA's EGM on Saturday 29th October at the University of Birmingham at 1.00pm, and be ready to participate in a dignified expression of no confidence in the Foster Review.
The Avon Room at the University of Birmingham will be the venue where the clubs will choose: do we wish to allow Sport England to nationalise our sport of athletics or would we prefer to retain our sport of many hundreds of clubs, organising many free competitions week after week, creating champions at all levels, and not a single superman costume to be seen.
Before UK Sport imposed UK Athletics onto our sport, we were among the best in the world, and the word "ASBO" was still unheard of. It is now time for the Sports Councils to recognise that their role is to fund accessible and affordable facilities in the community, where independent clubs from many different sports can meet and enjoy their sport.
It is now time for England’s Athletics Clubs to gather around our 125 year old association, and tell Sport England to get their tanks the hell off our lawn.
C.Zacharides |