The County Associations were, and continue to be, important to the development of athletics in the West of Scotland.   For some reason they do not seem to feature in the East which has its East District League.    The Counties all sprang up separately, they were local groups which concentrated on developing the sport locally and providing a bridge between club and District Competition.   eg the start of the winter season has always been the short relays and the format in the west in October was McAndrew Road Relays at Scotstoun on the first Saturday, then the County Relays the following week and then the Districts and, from 1974, National Relays,   It was a natural progression with distances varying between two and a half and three miles.    

It was a minor bone of contention when the governing body decided that it was asking fit athletes to run two hard relays in consecutive weeks and brought the District Relays back a week to the slot filled by the County Championships.   The ‘progression’ aspect was defeated.   However the county associations provided county relay championships and championships over the country and track & field championships in the summer; many also provided road races (eg DAAA organised the Balloch to Clydebank and Clydebank to Helensburgh races, Renfrewsire also provided an annual road racing championship as did Lanarkshire).   

These associations are all detailed separately but on this page we have the constitutions of two such organisation – similar but differing in the amount and type of detail.   Compare and contrast!

Ayrshire Harrier Clubs Association     Dunbartonshire Amateur Athletics Association

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