A DINNER TO CELEBRATE 40 YEARS
It was a glorious celebration of 40 memorable years, with stars from the past gathering to remember the four decades of the British Athletics League.
And as chairman Mike Heath said: "It is all about looking back. Memories are made of what the League has done."
The fact so many stalwarts of the League were present at the Ramada Hotel and Resort in Sutton Coldfield showed the impact it has had on the sport.
A few amazing stats.
Six clubs have been present since opening in 1969 - Birchfield Harriers, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Sale Harriers, Thames Valley and Woodford Green – and they were all presented with honours to record their service.
As were the four chairmen who have been in that role all spoke – Tony Ward, Jack Walters, Roger Simons and Mike Heath, the present occupant of that position.
Ward, the League’s first chairman, revealed that when the BAL was first being established, the teams were devised from a paper match - where results and performance were sent in - and incredibly the response was from 300 clubs.
Are there actually 300 clubs in existence today that could reach the standards the League seeks?
As Heath said: “It shows how British athletics has contracted and if you started from now, you would be lucky to have 100."
But when you listen to some of the stars of today, they continually stress the importance of the BAL. Sebastian Coe, more than most, regularly talks of the part the League used to play in allowing to him gain important races prior to his Olympic and World record glories.
At this celebration, there was a group from Polytechnic AC, who were very much involved in the League in the late 1960s, including Bob Frith, Andy Ronay, Bob Adams, Colin Campbell and Nick Overhead while Shaftesbury Barnet had many of their Cup-winning team from 1978 including Donovan Reid, Michael Powell, Julian Goater and Frank Attoh.
Heath has been the chairman of the BAL for more than a decade. So what does he see as the biggest differences between now and then?
He said: "The first thing, in that sense, is that the League is even more relevant for the level of athletes it attracts.
"There are many more other meetings for people to do, but the sport has become even more individualistic. There are more events for people - yet actually as a nation we are more interested in how we do as a team. We are the one place where people can actually experience a team environment.”
But age groups also have a greater chance at the BAL than elsewhere.
Heath added:  “Ten years ago, there was not the same level of intensity in juniors, under-20s and under-23s. The BAL gives an ideal opportunity for people from that age group to test themselves against the best seniors in a not-so-threatening environment. That is one of our key points.”
But, as Heath said: “Though standards in the last 10 years have gone up as we have seen League records broken, they have declined in the middle distances.
“But as Tony (Ward) said in his speech, one of the League’s objectives is to improve the levels of British field events and it does. We continue to provide the opportunity for British athletes in technical events who are not quite ready to get invited abroad to have top class competition in Britain.”
Here's to another 40 years...