How to Join an Athletics Club: Ages, Fees and First Steps

A Tuesday evening in March at a council-run track somewhere in the Midlands. The floodlights are on, a group of ten-year-olds is doing high-knees down the home straight in hoodies, a coach with a clipboard is setting out hurdles at the far end, and two parents by the gate are asking the same question every new family asks: what do we actually have to do to join? The answer is shorter than most people expect, and it has nothing to do with being quick.

To join an athletics club in England, find an affiliated club through the club finder on the England Athletics website (or Scottish Athletics, Welsh Athletics or Athletics Northern Ireland if you live there), contact the club's membership secretary, go along to a trial or taster session, then pay the club's subscription and the annual athlete registration that the club collects on behalf of the federation. That registration is what licenses you to compete. There is no standard to meet. Children usually start between nine and eleven, adults can start at any age, and the first few weeks are spent trying everything before anyone mentions a specialist event.

The four steps to join an athletics club in England

The process is the same whether the new member is a nine-year-old or a fifty-year-old. What differs is how long each step takes.

Find a club that is affiliated

Affiliation is the word to look for. A club affiliated to England Athletics has agreed to the federation's rules, carries its insurance, has a welfare officer and uses licensed coaches. It is also the only kind of club whose members can register and compete in licensed competition. The England Athletics club finder searches by postcode and lets you filter for the kind of club you want, track and field, road running, cross country, or a mix. The home nations each run their own version: Scottish Athletics, Welsh Athletics and Athletics Northern Ireland are the equivalents, and UK Athletics sits above all four as the governing body for the United Kingdom.

A search usually throws up two kinds of result in a town of any size: a track and field club based at a stadium, and one or more running clubs that meet at a pub, a leisure centre or a park. The difference between them matters.

Contact the membership secretary

Every club has one, sometimes under another title. The website usually names them or gives a form. The email should say who is joining, their age, any athletics they have done, and which training nights suit. For a child, give the school year as well as the age, because athletics age groups are decided by how old the athlete is on 31 August of the competition year, which itself runs from 1 October to 30 September, and a club organises its groups that way.

Attend a taster or trial session

Clubs call it different things. A trial in this sense is a look at the club rather than an assessment of the athlete. Most allow two or three sessions before asking for money, so the newcomer can see whether the coaching, the group and the training night actually fit.

Pay, register and get on the system

Once the athlete decides to stay, the club takes its own subscription and processes the national registration. In England that registration is recorded on the England Athletics membership system, and the athlete receives a registration number. That number follows them for the rest of their athletic life, through results, rankings and any change of club. Results from licensed competitions then appear on the Power of 10 rankings and athlete profiles.

1. 1SearchUse the England Athletics club finder, or the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish equivalent, to find affiliated clubs near home.
2. 2ContactEmail the membership secretary with the athlete's age, school year and the training nights that would suit.
3. 3TasterAttend two or three sessions free or at a small session fee before committing.
4. 4JoinPay the club subscription and complete the club's own membership form, including medical and photo consent for a child.
5. 5RegisterThe club processes the annual national registration, which gives the athlete a number and licenses them to compete.
6. 6CompeteEnter open meetings, leagues and championships under the club's name once the coach agrees the athlete is ready.

The usual sequence at a club affiliated to England Athletics; the names of each stage vary from club to club.

What age children can start athletics, and why clubs have waiting lists

Most track and field clubs in Britain take children from around nine to eleven. The reason is partly coaching and partly the competition structure. The youngest age group the UK Athletics Rules for Competition provide for is under-13, open to athletes who are 11 or 12 on 31 August of the competition year, and no league competition is laid on below it. Organisers are free to put on events for younger children at their own discretion, with shorter distances and lighter implements, and many do. A club that coaches for competition therefore starts its intake a year or two before the under-13 year, which is how nine and ten became the usual starting age.

Some clubs go younger. A group for seven- and eight-year-olds is common at larger clubs, run as fun athletics or a multi-skills session with relays, beanbag throws, foam javelins and obstacle courses. The emphasis there is on running, jumping, throwing and catching as general physical skills. The Sportshall format, which most children meet first at school, is built on exactly that idea; our guide to Sportshall athletics events explains the indoor competitions that grew out of it.

What the youngest groups actually do in a session is less specialised than parents expect. A typical hour for under-11s might include a warm-up game, a block of sprint drills, a short jumps station using a standing long jump or a low hurdle, a throws station with a soft implement, and a relay to finish. Nobody is put in a sprint group or a throws group at nine. The coaches are watching for coordination and enjoyment, and for the child who is clearly bored by running in straight lines but comes alive with a turbo javelin in their hand.

The waiting list problem

The short version is that coaches are volunteers, and a track has only so many lanes on a Tuesday. UK Athletics guidance sets ratios of coaches to young athletes, and a club cannot simply add twenty children to a group without adding coaches to match. Popular clubs in towns with one track therefore run waiting lists, sometimes long ones, for the youngest groups. Some run an academy intake once or twice a year, where a batch of new children starts together. Others prioritise siblings of existing members or children of parents who volunteer.

The practical advice is to get on the list early, ask honestly how long it is, and ask whether helping out would make a difference. At many clubs it does. A parent who takes a coaching course often finds the group can take more children, their own included.

The age groups themselves are explained in full in our guide to UK athletics age groups from under-11 to masters, including why the cut-off date catches out families with a child born in late summer.

What the fees pay for, and who collects each one

New members are usually surprised that there is more than one payment. There are normally three, and they go to different places.

The club subscription is the club's own income. It pays for coaching courses, kit, equipment, league entry fees, travel to fixtures, insurance top-ups and the hire of the track. Clubs set it themselves, often with a lower rate for juniors, students and second members of a family, and many collect it annually by direct debit.

The track or session fee is what the athlete pays on each training night. Many clubs train at a local authority or leisure trust stadium, and the operator charges for the use of the track. Some clubs fold this into the subscription; others charge it at the gate each session, or sell a block of sessions.

The national registration is the payment the club collects and passes to England Athletics (or to the federation in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland). It is a fixed annual fee per athlete set by the federation, and it renews each year from 1 April. It covers the athlete's licence to compete, the athlete's insurance in licensed activity and the work of the federation. A registered athlete quoting a valid registration number escapes the unaffiliated levy that licensed races add on top of the entry fee, which is most of the point of registering for a road runner. Our guide to England Athletics affiliation and registration explains what the registration licenses and what an unregistered runner loses.

None of the figures is given here, because all three change. The registration fee is reviewed by the federation, and club subscriptions vary between a small running club with no facility costs and a large stadium club with a full coaching programme.

Payment	Who sets it	Who receives it	What it covers	When it renews
Club subscription	The club committee	The club	Coaching, equipment, league entries, club running costs	Usually annually, set by the club
Track or session fee	The facility operator or the club	The stadium operator, via the club or at the gate	Use of the track and floodlights on training nights	Per session, per block or folded into the subscription
National registration	England Athletics or the home nation federation	The federation, collected by the club	Licence to compete, insurance in licensed activity, federation services	Annually from 1 April
Competition entry	The meeting organiser	The organiser	A place in a specific open meeting or race	Per event

The awkward truth is that the registration year does not match anything else in a family's calendar. It runs from April, the athletics age groups are counted from the end of August, and the club subscription may run from January. England Athletics covers the obvious trap: an athlete new to the sport who registers between January and March is carried through to 31 March of the following year rather than paying again a few weeks later. That concession is for genuinely new athletes, so anyone rejoining after a lapse or arriving from another club should ask the membership secretary how the club handles a late-winter start before paying anything.

Athletics club vs running club: which one suits which athlete

Quality does not come into it. The two kinds of club were set up to do different jobs.

A track and field club, the sort usually named after a town with "Athletic Club", "Harriers" or "AC" on the end, is built around a stadium. It has, or rents, a running track, a throws cage for discus and hammer, a shot circle, a javelin runway, long and triple jump pits and a high jump bed, and it coaches across all of them. Its training is organised in event groups: sprints and hurdles, endurance, jumps and throws. Its competition calendar is the track season in summer and, for the endurance runners, cross country in winter. Its junior section is usually the largest part of the club.

A running club is built around people who want to run distance. It meets on roads, paths and trails, usually two or three evenings a week, and its members race on the road, at parkrun, on the fells and over the country. Many running clubs are affiliated to England Athletics and register their members exactly as a track club does. Few have junior sections, because most do not have the coaching structure or the welfare arrangements for children.

Athlete	Better fit	Why
A child of nine to twelve	Track and field club	Children need the variety of running, jumping and throwing, and junior sections with welfare structures are mostly at track clubs
A sprinter or hurdler	Track and field club	Needs a track, starting blocks, hurdles and specialist sprint coaching
A jumper or thrower	Track and field club	Needs pits, a cage, implements and a coach qualified in the event
An adult who wants to run 10K and half marathons	Running club	Training is built around distance and road racing, often from a convenient town-centre base
A teenage middle-distance runner	Either, often both	A track club gives speed work and track racing; a running club or the same club's endurance group gives winter mileage and cross country
An adult returning to sprinting or field events	Track and field club	Few running clubs coach field events; many track clubs welcome adults into event groups

There is a lot of overlap. Several large clubs are both, with a track section and a road running section under one committee. Many endurance athletes are members of a running club for their weeknight runs and second-claim members of a track club for league fixtures, which is exactly what second-claim membership is for. And plenty of people start at parkrun, the free Saturday 5K, find themselves chatting to someone in a club vest, and join a running club the following week.

What a first session at an athletics club looks like

Turn up ten minutes early. The coach will want a word, partly to check medical information and partly to work out which group the newcomer belongs in.

The kit list is short. Running trainers with a bit of grip, shorts or leggings, a T-shirt, a warm top that can come off and go back on, and a water bottle. In winter, a hat and gloves, because standing between drills on an open track in January is colder than anyone expects. No jewellery. Long hair tied back. For a child, a named bag and a parent's phone number given to the coach.

Why spikes can wait

Spikes are the thing families most often buy too early. They are lightweight shoes with a rigid sole plate and short metal pins, designed for racing and fast work on a synthetic track. They are useless for a warm-up, harmful on concrete and outgrown within months by a growing child. A beginner needs none. Coaches suggest them once an athlete is competing regularly and knows roughly which events they do, because a sprint spike, a distance spike, a jumps spike and a throws shoe are different things. Most tracks limit the length of spike pins, and the stadium will have a sign saying what the maximum is.

The general group first

At a well-run club, the first weeks are spent in a general group, whatever the athlete's age. The session might include a dynamic warm-up, technical drills such as A-skips and bounding, some short sprints with a standing or crouch start, a jumps or hurdles element, a throws element and a conditioning circuit to finish. For adults it is often similar, scaled appropriately.

The general group exists because talent in athletics is not obvious. A child who is fifth in the sprint race may be first in the standing jump. A teenager who hates the 800 metres may have long levers and a natural feel for the discus. Coaches want to see that before anyone specialises.

When a coach suggests an event group

Usually after a few months for a junior, and sooner for an adult who already knows what they want. The coach might say the athlete looks like a jumper, or suggest trying the throws group on Thursday. It is a suggestion, and young athletes are encouraged to keep doing multi-events into their teens. The combined events, the heptathlon in its seven-event order and the decathlon, are where an all-rounder ends up, and the pentathlon and indoor combined events give younger athletes a version of the same thing.

Who is coaching your child: licences, checks and the welfare officer

Every coach working with young athletes at an affiliated club should hold a current UK Athletics coaching licence. The licence is more than a certificate from a course. To hold one, a coach must keep a recognised coaching qualification up to date, pass a criminal records check, and pass the safeguarding course required for the level of licence applied for. A licence runs for three years from the date it is issued, and UK Athletics can suspend or withdraw it inside that period.

The criminal record check differs across the UK. In England and Wales it is a check through the Disclosure and Barring Service, in Scotland membership of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups scheme, and in Northern Ireland a check through AccessNI. All three serve the same function: confirming that a person is not barred from working with children and that nothing on their record makes them unsuitable.

The coaching qualifications themselves have been restructured more than once, and the titles have changed. The path generally runs from an entry-level assistant award, through a general athletics coaching award, to event-group and specialist qualifications for coaches who work with performance athletes. A volunteer parent starting out will typically help under the supervision of a qualified coach while working through the first award.

The club welfare officer

Appointing a welfare officer is not optional. England Athletics made its safeguarding club standard a condition of affiliation from the 2025-26 affiliation year, and to meet it a club has to name at least one appropriately trained, DBS-checked lead welfare officer on the myAthletics portal and declare every active coach and leader it uses. England Athletics recommends a second trained welfare officer alongside the lead one. Their name and contact details should be on the club's website and on a noticeboard at the track. Their job is to be the person a parent, an athlete or a coach goes to with a concern about a child's wellbeing, from bullying in a training group to something more serious.

Questions a parent is entitled to ask

A parent can ask any of these, and a good club will answer without fuss:

• Which coaches will be working with my child, and do they hold a current UK Athletics licence?
• What is the coach-to-athlete ratio in this group?
• Who is the club welfare officer, and how do I contact them?
• What is the club's policy on photography and social media?
• How are children supervised at away fixtures and on travel?
• What happens if my child is injured at training?

A club that answers by pointing to a published policy is doing its job; a club that bristles is worth wondering about.

From training to competing: open meetings, counties and leagues

Plenty of members never compete, and that is fine. But for most young athletes and many adults, competition is the reason they joined, and the structure of it in England has more rungs than people realise.

Open meetings

The lowest rung, and the most flexible. An open meeting is a licensed competition that any registered athlete can enter, usually online in advance, sometimes on the day. They run through spring and summer at tracks all over the country. An athlete picks their events, pays an entry fee per event, turns up and competes. There is no team score and nobody is selected. Open meetings are where most juniors get their first race times and where seniors chase qualifying marks for championships.

County and area championships

Every English county association runs championships, usually in May, for each age group. Winning or placing can lead to selection for the county team at the English Schools Championships, a separate pathway entered through school rather than club, which our guide to qualifying for the English Schools Athletics Championships explains. Above the counties sit the area championships for the North, the Midlands and the South, and above those the England and UK age-group championships, which require a qualifying standard.

Inter-club leagues

This is where most club athletes get their regular matches. The Youth Development League is the main inter-club competition for younger athletes in England, split into a lower age group of under-13s and under-15s and an upper age group of under-17s and under-20s. Four age groups in all, each running four matches a season in divisions organised by region. For seniors, the National Athletics League is the top tier, formed when the men's British Athletics League and the UK Women's League voted themselves out of existence and transferred their assets into a single mixed league. Below it sit the regional leagues: the Southern Athletics League, the Northern Athletics League, the Midland leagues and others, plus many county and local evening leagues.

1. 1Club nightTraining and in-house time trials, no licence needed for the session itself.
2. 2Open meetingLicensed competition any registered athlete can enter, the usual source of first official times.
3. 3League fixtureSelected by the club's team manager to score points in the Youth Development League or a senior league.
4. 4County championshipAge-group titles decided each spring, with selection to county teams following.
5. 5Area and nationalArea championships, then England and UK age-group championships with qualifying standards.
6. 6InternationalSelection for an England or Great Britain and Northern Ireland team by the relevant federation.

A typical progression for a junior track and field athlete; selection and entry rules differ by age group, county and season.

The distinction between England and Great Britain matters at the top of that ladder. An athlete selected for the Commonwealth Games runs for England. An athlete selected for the Olympics or World Championships runs for Great Britain and Northern Ireland, picked by UK Athletics, often through the UK Athletics Championships and trials.

How league athletics works, and why the sprinter ends up in the hammer

League athletics is a team competition built out of individual events. It is also the part of the sport that newcomers find most baffling, because the logic is a team manager's rather than an athlete's.

A and B strings

In most leagues, each club enters two athletes in every event, labelled the A string and the B string. In a match between several clubs, the A-string athletes from every club might compete in one race and the B-string athletes in another, or they might all compete together with separate scoring, depending on the league. Points are awarded for each finishing place, with the winner scoring most and points dropping by one for each place below. Every event scores, from the 100 metres to the hammer, and the steeplechase counts exactly as much as the sprint relay.

Promotion and relegation

At the end of a season the points from all fixtures are totalled into a league table for each division. Clubs at the top go up a division and clubs at the bottom go down, just as in football. Divisions are often regional at the lower levels, which keeps travel sensible, and national at the top. Being in the top division of the Youth Development League or the National Athletics League is a point of real pride for a club, and it is fiercely contested.

Why the team manager needs everyone

Here is the problem. A league fixture may contain thirty or more events, and the club needs two scorers in each. If the club has no B-string hammer thrower, it scores nothing in that slot. If it puts a willing sprinter in the circle for a single throw that registers a legal mark, the club scores the points for last place. Over a season those points decide divisions.

So the team manager rings round. A sprinter who has never held a hammer finds herself being shown how to swing it safely in the warm-up area by the throws coach. A distance runner is asked to fill the steeplechase. A long jumper does the triple jump as well. Plenty of athletes have found their best event this way.

Safety still applies. Nobody should be put into the hammer or the pole vault without basic instruction from a qualified coach, and a team manager who asks a novice to do either without that is wrong to do so. The rules for the hammer in particular, from the cage to the wire length, are set out in our guide to hammer throw rules.

First-claim and second-claim membership explained

This is the rule that confuses adult runners most, and it is simpler than it looks.

Your first-claim club is the club you represent in competition. Your national registration is held through it. When you race at a county, area or national championship, in a cross country league, or in a team event where club eligibility matters, you run for your first-claim club. You can have only one at a time.

A second-claim club is an additional membership. It exists because no single club offers everything. The common case is a road runner whose first-claim running club does not compete in track leagues; that runner can join a track club as a second-claim member and compete for it in a league the first-claim club does not enter. The rules of each competition say whether second-claim athletes are eligible and under what conditions, and some leagues limit how many a club may field.

Situation	First-claim club	Second-claim club
County championships	Represents	Does not represent
English National Cross Country Championships	Represents	Does not represent
A track league the first-claim club does not enter	Not applicable	May represent, subject to the league's rules
Open meetings and most road races	Usually entered under it	Some race entries allow it, many do not
National registration	Held through this club	No second registration fee is due to the federation

Changing clubs

Athletes do move clubs: house moves, a new coach, a falling-out. The transfer is requested by the athlete through the myAthletics portal, and the request goes to officials at the former club, who have 28 days to respond. A first transfer in any twelve-month period clears quickly once that is done. A second move inside the same twelve months is referred to the Eligibility Committee instead, and can carry a period during which the athlete may not score for the new club in team competition. Eligibility is governed by rule 21 of the UK Athletics Rules for Competition, and the length of that team-competition ban has been described differently in different club guidance, so take the current rule rather than a club's summary of it. Individual entries are not affected. Any delay bites hardest in cross country, where team positions at the English National Cross Country Championships are a serious matter between clubs.

Universities and schools

A student who competes for a university in British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) competitions is not changing club. University teams sit outside the club claim system, so a student can run for the university at BUCS and for their home club in county and league fixtures. Schools work the same way: English Schools competitions are entered through school and county, not club. A school athlete who also belongs to a club does both without conflict.

Starting athletics as an adult, or coming back to it

There is no standard to join. Not for a junior, not for a senior, not for a sixty-year-old who last ran a race at school. Any affiliated club will take an adult, and a good one will place them in a group that suits.

Beginners' running groups

Many running clubs and some track clubs run beginner courses, usually built around a progression from walking and jogging to running continuously for thirty minutes. They are led by volunteers holding Leadership in Running Fitness, the England Athletics qualification that licenses and insures its holder to lead running sessions for anyone over twelve, and they are frequently the largest single source of new adult members a running club has.

Masters competition

Masters athletics starts at 35 and runs in five-year age bands, 35 to 39, 40 to 44 and so on, upwards without limit. An athlete competes against their own age band, and results are adjusted against age-graded standards that make a 65-year-old's 100 metres comparable with a 35-year-old's. There are county, regional and national masters championships, and international ones through European and World Masters Athletics. Road racing is less tidy. Veteran age categories in road races have historically started at 35 for women and 40 for men at many races, though most organisers now use the same bands for both.

• 4Home nation federations under UK Athletics
• 35Age at which masters competition begins
• 5Width of each masters age band in years
• 4Age groups in the Youth Development League

Fixed structural figures from the federations' and World Masters Athletics' rules; they do not change from season to season.

Officiating and coaching

Not every way into a club involves running. Every track meeting needs officials: starters, timekeepers, track judges, field judges, photo finish operators. The sport is chronically short of them, and the courses are run through England Athletics. An official's licence takes a newcomer into the heart of the sport, often within a season. The same goes for coaching. A parent who takes the first coaching award to help a child's group can find themselves a decade later coaching county athletes.

Returning after years away

The commonest returner is someone in their thirties or forties who ran as a junior. Start in the general or endurance group rather than going straight back to sprint sessions, because tendons and hamstrings are the first things to fail. Expect the times to be slower. Enjoy the age-graded tables, which tend to be kinder than memory.

Disability athletics and finding an inclusive club

Club-level provision for disabled athletes in Britain grew after London 2012, and more clubs now run an inclusive session than did before it.

Finding a club with an inclusive or para section

The England Athletics club finder can be filtered for clubs offering disability or inclusive athletics. Not every club has a dedicated section, but many will welcome an athlete with a disability into a general group, with appropriate adjustments. Some clubs run specific inclusive sessions with coaches who have completed disability-specific training. The best approach is to contact the membership secretary or welfare officer, explain the athlete's needs, and ask what the club can offer. A frank conversation at the start avoids a disappointing first evening.

Frame running and wheelchair racing

Frame running, which was called RaceRunning until the name changed, uses a three-wheeled frame with a saddle and body support but no pedals. The athlete propels it with their feet. It suits people with significant coordination or balance impairments, including many with cerebral palsy, and has become a popular entry point at clubs that have the frames. Wheelchair racing uses a specialist three-wheeled racing chair, quite different from a day chair, and needs a track and a coach familiar with the equipment. A small number of clubs and regional hubs have racing chairs available to try, which matters because the equipment is expensive. The road version of the event, and its long history in Britain, is covered in our guide to the London Marathon wheelchair race.

Where classification begins

Competition in para athletics is organised by classification, which groups athletes with similar levels of impairment together. A classification code such as T44 or F37 tells you whether the event is track (T) or field (F) and which impairment group the athlete competes in. At club and early competition level, athletes can compete in many events without a formal classification. Once they want to compete in classified para events, they go through a national classification process run under UK Athletics, and later, for international competition, a World Para Athletics classification. The codes and what each one means are explained in our guide to Paralympic classification.

Intellectual impairment

Athletes with an intellectual impairment compete in the T20 and F20 classes, and there is a separate pathway through organisations that work specifically with athletes with learning disabilities. Many club athletes compete happily in mainstream open meetings and leagues too, scored alongside everyone else.

Getting the most out of the first season at a club

Most of what makes a club work is not written down, and a first-year member picks it up slowly. Four things are worth knowing in advance.

The club vest matters. In licensed competition, an athlete representing a club must wear the club's registered colours. Buy one from the club when you start competing, not from a sports shop in a near-match. At a league fixture, the team manager will check.

Results go on the internet. Every licensed result is uploaded to the national results databases, and from there to the rankings. A junior athlete with a profile on Power of 10 will see every race they have ever done, every personal best, and their position in national age-group rankings. Some find this motivating. Some find it stressful. Parents should talk about it with their child before the first season, not after.

The season has a shape. For track and field, the outdoor season runs from April to September, with indoor competition from December to February. Cross country runs through winter, with county championships in early January and the national championships in late February. Road racing runs all year. A club's training plan follows these seasons, and a new member who understands them will understand why the January sessions look nothing like the July ones.

Volunteering is how clubs survive. Most clubs run entirely on unpaid help. The track nights, the coaching, the team management, the officiating at fixtures, the committee meetings: all of it. Parents of junior members are expected to help in some way, even if it is only once or twice a season. A family that turns up, trains, competes and never helps is noticed. A family that helps, even slightly, becomes part of the club.

For anything beyond the club itself, the athletics section of the site and the wider England hub collect the other guides in this series, from the Great North Run to the London Marathon ballot.