Grassroots track and field, club by club.
Second-claim athletes are a quiet fact of club life — and a proper test of how welcoming your club really is. Here's how grassroots teams can turn a paperwork relationship into genuine belonging, without pretending the rules don't exist.
Behind every club track meet is a small crew of timekeepers, starters, judges and marshals holding the whole thing together. As fixtures pile up and the same faces reappear, Athleticos looks at the quiet officiating shortage at grassroots level — and how clubs can widen the gate without making it Feel like a second job.
Every winter, club kit cupboards quietly turn outgrown spikes and spare layers into a lifeline for families facing another expensive season. This is how loan schemes work in practice — and why the generosity behind them may need a sturdier structure before it becomes another hidden volunteer job.
Nine pounds on the entry form, and a small mountain of hidden costs behind it. We followed the money through a typical UK club track meet — track hire, officials' mileage, medals, milk — to find out where it goes, and why the people keeping it afloat are rarely the ones being thanked.
Club championships should be the one meet every member can genuinely win, yet they are too often squeezed between league fixtures, holidays and end-of-season fatigue. It is time to treat them like the celebration they are.
Cross-country league scoring can look like alchemy from the sideline. Follow a fictional club through one muddy fixture and see why every finishing place, every pack and every incomplete squad matters.
AGM season is here: the biscuits are out, the treasurer's spreadsheet is open and someone has strong views about the clubhouse roof. Here is how to get through the meeting with your club, and your volunteering mojo, intact.
Clubs can fill an under-11s start line and still lose half of them by Year 9. Coaches and parents explain the under-13 cliff edge, and the small, unglamorous things that keep teenagers in the sport.
Most clubs pick their four quickest athletes, hand them a baton in July and hope for the best. A dedicated 45-minute handover session once a week can turn a scrappy 4x100m into something genuinely worth watching — and into the best social hour on the club calendar.
A January trip to an indoor arena can feel like a different sport: tighter bends, shorter races, a warm-up room the size of your kitchen and a call room that waits for nobody. Here is the gentle version of the briefing your club coach would give you if they had twenty quiet minutes and a brew in hand.
When the race calendar goes quiet, the real club work starts. We asked coaches and athletes about muddy intervals, borrowed sports halls and the small habits that make summer performances possible.
Results sheets list athletes, not the person who chased the entries, packed the first-aid kit or held the hut key. Here are seven volunteer roles that keep grassroots athletics moving — and how clubs can share the load.
GPS watches and training apps are everywhere at club nights — but are they helping young athletes or turning every rep into a spreadsheet? Ahead of the 2026/27 indoor season, we asked UK coaches, parents and athletes what they really think.
Before the long jump board is dragged out, a volunteer-driven minibus has already done a full morning’s work. We ride along with a UK athletics club to see what it really takes to get junior athletes to winter training — and why transport is grassroots sport’s quietest event.
It's 7pm on a Tuesday and the car park behind the leisure centre is full — of athletes. We spent a fortnight with a club that lost its track seven years ago and refused to lose its momentum, and asked what a session looks like when there's nowhere to run.
No red carpet, no dress code, one very tired tea urn — our annual roll-call of the club moments that made 2026 worth standing in the rain for. From a 300-mile relay leg to a hammer throw that broke the tape measure, here's what we'll remember.