ROY STRATTON  is the President of the Middlesex County Athletics Association. He first was a member of Grafton Harriers and remembers running his first race as a club runner back in December 1955. He points out why the County Championships are not attended by many athletes:-

    " Because it is not given high priority by the athlete. Years ago the Inter-Counties and the AAA's were on a par in terms of where they stood in the pecking order of events. The Inter-Counties now have been so devalued over the years that nobody really is interested. A lot is down to the 'Powers that be' saying things like 'Well the Inter-Counties is early in the season!'
    ' It is not early in not earlier in the season than it ever was. It used to be the last weekend in May--Whitsun Bank Holiday at the White City Stadium in front of  packed houses.
    'The coaches don't seem to put any value on it and of course an athlete won't do anything if a coach says he is not to do it.
    ' Most people these days feel that competition interrupts training; They train and train and train--'Competition?  Oh! I don't know about that they think. Better ask the coach?
    ' If they perform badly once they think ' Oh I better go back to the drawing board. What's gone wrong!'. If you race regularly you are entitled to a bad run now and again and I think that is the problem!"

    ERIC SHIRLEY  was AAA's 3000m steeplechase Champion in 1956 and 1958 and was an Olympic finalist in the 3000 steeple in 1956 and has won veteran titles, even over 800m.

    "You start with the Inter-Counties. You had to run and qualify in your County to get into the Inter-Counties. The Inter-Counties was a big meeting at the White City. Thousands of people there. The Inter-Counties was just as hard to win, if not harder than the AAA's so it starts here.'
    'You have got to get these guys off the road. I don't say road running is bad.. What I am  saying you have got to get the road runners to train on the track, that is what you have got to do.. You have got to come onto the track and run like a  thoroughbred. Carthorse on the road, thoroughbred on the track. You can plod along the road just like that but if you do that on the track you get nowhere. The road runners should come on to the track and do sessions at least twice a week."

    Geoff Harrold is a coach . He ran 2:22 for a marathon, won the South London Harriers 30 miles road race by over three minutes and has a claim to fame by winning the Sunday Times Fun Run for over 50's, ahead of Bruce Tulloh. I asked him  What has happened with the lack of interest now in the sport by many in things like the county event etc?.  

 "There was a gap when schools would not do individual sports, they would only do team  sports. I think we are just coming out of that era. Men and women 'Junior distance runners' are pretty strong at the moment I think though'
    'It has become traditional to have  very small fields in senior distance events, where as it used to be a tradition to have huge fields.'

' I think there are  just so many other things for young people to do, more glamorous sports. Also boys and girls often get cars as soon as they are seventeen. They don't go out on their bicycle and don't have to trot to school. I am not saying like the Kenyans, that they should run to school but they do less exercise because they all get those cars and also, at the same time, it became uncool to play football at break time at school, where as before they still would have a lot of exercise to do but do less exercise now outside of their athletics'
    'For a long time they had lost any role models senior-wise. No role models, only in their own age groups. You look at the ranking lists, Mo Farah aside and, you notice there is nobody of any note to emulate over the last 10 years as a senior. They are still not very good the top runners. 30 years ago we had 4 or 5 people in the country who were under 28 minutes for 10k now you might get one."