Congratulations to all the young athletes who have helped their club achieve promotion to the North of England Premiership of the UKA National Young Athletes League - a 100% record clinched the NW Division title - great stuff!
But where is the championship trophy or any form of recognition of the clubs success? If this was a football (or other sporting success) there would be a tangible reward to mark the efforts of the team. But athletics (UKA) doesn't seem to emphasise a team ethos - the success didn't even make it into the local rag! (as a lot of other club successes don't).
UKA as an organisation have been allocated millions of lottery pounds but can't manage to sponsor it's own national youth competition at grassroots level - even the meeting T-Shirts for athletes of the match were cut this year - and they can't provide any funding/publicity for championship awards/club recognition. No wonder athletics continues to lose out to other sports - what exactly is the point of UKA if it continues to waste
money on a few privileged athletes at the expense of developing participation rates amongst the young people of today - Fantastic achievement from our youngsters - against the odds!! If UKA can't recognise our achievement then perhaps we as a club - or Cheshire AA (who have a healthy bank balance) should. Or perhaps new sponsors Mcains (was McDonalds a few years ago) will rectify the situation next year - don't think so though - unless we eat lots of chips! - and there's another grumble..........