The West Yorkshire Track & Field League

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The League was set up in 1968 by Granville Beckett, then Hon. Secretary of Huddersfield's Longwood Harriers and later North of England AA Secretary.

The idea came following visits to Manchester, where Roger Colson had made the most of the new facilities at Stretford's Longford Park to form the Stretford Track League. Beckett felt that there was room for a similar league on this side of the Pennines.

There were no synthetic tracks in Yorkshire in those days and the first season in the league saw a dozen fixtures held at various venues, including grass tracks so that each club in the organisation could host a fixture. Tracks used included Temple Newsam, Leeds, Leeds Road, Huddersfield, Marley Stadium, Keighley, Horsfall Playing Fields, Bradford and grass tracks at Holmfirth High School, and Spring Hall, Halifax. Some 700 athletes of all age groups joined the league, and were issued with a season's fixture card and a number.

Bob Smith of Bingley Harriers, was elected the League's first president at a general meeting at Huddersfield YMCA and Wakefield's Doug Bedford, later to become league president himself, presented two trophies for annual competition.

West Yorkshire Championships for various track events were allocated to various meetings and provided a main event for each fixture. The league was seen as a bridge to gulf school and club competition and it is pleasing to see the league still flourishing in this respect more than 30 years after its formation.