Bob Harvey at The Palace - A 'stepping stone' philosophy

Who is Bob Harvey, you may ask, what credentials has he to address the matter?.
Bob was a good middle distance runner, who turned to officiating and has retried from his work at the Commercial Union. (He held the Insurance Championship two lap record.)
He is a Member of the UK Young Athletes League. He is part of the UKA Competition Strategy group, a track inspector, graded official Winter and Summer so, he is really busy on athletics matters all through the year.
 " In the 'Old' days there were stepping stones to international stardom which were well recognised. The County Championships, The City Charities meeting, The Area Championships like the Southern ,The Inter-Counties and the AAA's so, is it not a bit unfair that events clash with those all the time these days?
  " The problem that we have is that there are more providers of competition. There are more schools events, more young peoples' events, veteran events, there are going to be clashes. The only way it can be simplified is for various levels to be allowed to run fixtures through out the season so, they don't clash. For example I find it difficult with some events...'
  " The British Milers Club have a big meeting on today 12/6/10?
  " Which is unaccountable. They area not accountable to anybody. This is the problem. I think there is the prospect, at the moment, of permuting coming in which almost certainly starts next season. I think that will help with higher matches.'
    'The biggest problem is that people are avoiding each other. Competitively that is not really sensible!'
   " There was a format when we had a rather large amount of World Class middle distance runners in the late 60's, 70's and 80's and things appeared to have a tried and tested way of working out. Now it seems competing is different and splintered all over the place. Professional, some non-professional, some low key some higher key events."
   " I think one of the major changes which people don't see quite so much. In the 50's and early 60's the situation was that the Universities had a lot of athletes, the Business Houses had a lot of athletes and the clubs had a lot
of athletes because the sport was more populist than it is now. What has tended to happen is the Business Houses have dropped, The Army, Navy and Air Force declined in numbers, when you think in terms of 300,000 in the Army but now 120,000. It is a big difference in competitive standards. A lot of the Trophy meetings which we used to go to went by the board with the onset of league meetings."
      BOB HARVEY the competitive athlete:- " I only had about 4 seasons when I ran 2/10ths of second outside the British Half mile record time in 1958. 1:53.0 then I went down to 1:52.1 on cinders.'    'Talking about the competitive levels you can compete in, I never ran the Surrey Schools so I did not run the English schools. I really only came through as a second year junior then I got caught up with the Army I got stopped and getting married I had to look after a family
than run."
     A very sprightly 71, Bob Harvey, talked to me between his job of getting people for the presentation of medals at the Southern.He concluded:-
                                  " I like meeting people and I have a laugh with these people. The kids coming up for medals. I call them kids because I don't differentiate. The fact they are 18 or 30 it does not matter.
They are all kids to me."