Grassroots track and field, club by club.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.