Bridgnorth Athletics Club closure: 'Young athletics stars will be our legacy'
An athletics stalwart has described the closure of Bridgnorth Athletics Club as a 'massive blow', and hopes its talented youngsters will prove to be its legacy.
The club will cease to operate at the end of March, just three years after it was crowned England Athletics Club of the Year.
Despite developing several UK and England medal winners, the club has not been able to attract enough coaches, committee members and volunteers to remain sustainable, and will close after 19 years of competition.
Chairman Stuart Hamilton, who also won West Midlands Coach of the Year in 2016, is now looking to find his athletes new clubs, and hopes extra travelling won't put them off training and competing.
He said: "We've lost the whole committee, which includes coaches. It's a combination of things - retirements, work commitments, job changes, family changes.
"I've been involved for 19 years so to me it feels like a massive blow. But I'm 67 now and I can't go on forever unfortunately."
He added: "A lot of our athletes do other sports like rugby and football as well, and their parents might help out with those teams. So it's a big commitment for them. We've got over 100 junior members. All of our coaches are qualified but it is very difficult to get enough to run a club. Other clubs and other sports are struggling because of a lack of volunteers. It's finding people that can be committed every week at a particular time. There is so much involved.
"The athletes on our books will now be looking for other clubs in the area and we are helping them with that. Hopefully extra travel won't put them off, but to be fair a lot go all over the country for competitions, so I think they will keep going."
The several individual successes the club has had over the years culminated in the crowning glory of being voted England Club of the Year in 2016 at a glittering ceremony at the English Athletics Hall of Fame, where superstars including Linford Christie, Katherine Merry and Dina Asher-Smith were in attendance.
Stuart added: "That was fantastic, I didn't think a club of our size could win an award like that. But we had so much success with our junior athletes. We've had various medals in the UK Championships and the English Schools Championships."
One of those includes 800m runner Adrian Lloyd-Davies, who scored bronze in the 2016 UK School Games. He alongside the Carvell brothers - 800m runner Oliver and 400m specialist Charlie, as well as sprinter Lucy Elcock, have been earmarked by Stuart as potential stars of the future.
"I hope they and others will be our legacy," he said. "We certainly will be supporting all of our athletes and I think they will be welcome in almost any club in the country."
