European Team Athletics 'Comes Home' to Dublin, Morton Stadium, June 22/23rd.

The forthcoming European Athletics Team Championships 1st League, taking place in the Morton Stadium, Santry in just over a week's time, will be a real 'sort of homecoming' for European team athletics competition, as Irish athletics, its athletes and officials, have played a pivotal role in the development and growth of the international team competition format since the late nineteenth century.


International athletics history was made at Lansdowne Road, Dublin on the 5th June 1876 when the world's first ever international team athletics meeting was held between Ireland and England under clement weather conditions. The scoring system used in 1876 was then event wins, as opposed to individual event placings today.

At this inaugural team competition, England took the laurels of offer by winning 9 events to Ireland's 5. The star performer of the day, then all of 137 years ago, was one Walter Slade (ENG), who recorded the notable time of 1:59.2 for the 880 yards, at which time was a World's best for the distance, now run as the 800m in modern athletics.

Three of the Irish victories on the day in Lansdowne Road in 1876, (now the Aviva Stadium) were recorded by the Davin brothers from Carrick-on-Suir, with Maurice winning the Shot Putt and Hammer Throw, and Tom and Pat sharing first place in the High Jump on the day.

The return match, held at London AC Grounds, in Stamford Bridge on 26th May 1877 resulted in an another defeat for Ireland, losing out by 11 events to 2 in event wins; but that was then, and this is now of course.

Another historic athletics milestone was set on 20th July 1895, when the world's first regular series of International matches was inaugurated at Glasgow Celtic FC Grounds, Parkhead, between Scotland and Ireland, with Ireland taking the spoils then by 6 events to 5 events.

Ireland notched up a very impressive 11 wins in this series to Scotland's 7, with one drawn match in 1912. The 1914 match saw the first Triangular International Contest between England v Scotland v Ireland, which was held at Hamden Park, Glasgow of 11th July. In the this match, England won 5 track events and the Long Jump to take the match, outdoing Scotland's 3 events and Ireland 2 events.

Earlier attempts to involve England in an international match series had been unfortunately rebuffed by the A.A.A. of England at the time.

These always competitive matches took place in unbroken sequence through to 1914, when the outbreak of the First World War understandably put pay to the match for a time.

During the inter-war years, Ireland hosted its first International track and field match against European opposition on 15th August, 1931 at Croke Park, Dublin, against a powerful French team, with seven metric track events from 100m to 5000m to be decided, three jumps (long, high and pole) and three throws (shot putt, discus and hammer).

Ireland took the match, beating France by 9 events to 4 events, although interestingly four of the Irish wins were by default because the relevant French team members had not travelled to Dublin for various reasons.

In the 4 x 400m relay, the French team had actually been placed 1st but were later disqualified for a final exchange infringement, which gave Ireland a 5-4 win in the contested event at the time.

In more modern times, Ireland has continued it proud tradition to perform and stage international team athletics competition.

Ireland was first allocated this European Team competition when the semi-final of the Women's Europa Cup took place in Belfield in July 1977. As host, Ireland automatically qualified for the grouping, along with the UK, GDR, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Iceland.

This famous match took place on the first ever tartan track in Ireland, which had been formally opened by the Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave on 14 June 1977.

With stars of the time like the great Marita Koch in action, the Europa Cup match on 17 July was won by East Germany (114 pts) followed by the UK (102 pts) and Bulgaria (91 pts). Ireland placed a respectable 6th place with 48 pts.

Marita Walton from Kilkenny, then 17 years old, stole the show for Ireland on the day in 1977 with two National Senior records - a 14.52 m performance in Shot Putt and 45.08 m in the discus. The GDR went on to win the Women's final in Helsinki later that year.

Ireland subsequently had the honour of hosting the European Cup event, as it was known then, in four subsequent years in 1983, 1989, 1994 and 1997. The event then had a name change in 2009 to the European Athletics Team Championships, which has quickly established itself as the premier team event on the international athletics calendar.

And so the marvellous Irish international team athletics tradition continues, when the 2013 European Athletics Team Championships 1st League take place in the famous Morton Stadium in a little over 7 days time, when new records may well be set and new tales of competitive adventure will definitely be told.

The Morton Stadium, Santry, Dublin, is one of the most famous athletics stadiums in the world. The stadium has held numerous national athletics championships and international athletics competitions over the years, and will always be remembered in the annals of world athletics history when 5 men broke the 4-minute mile barrier in the same race in 1958, in front of 20,000 passionate Irish athletics fans.

The challenge to the Irish Team to keep it's 1st League status will be one that all of the fifty strong Irish Athletics Team, together with support staff, will relish, in what will no doubt be the highest quality athletics meeting ever staged in Ireland.

The Morton Stadium is expected to be full with Irish supporters for the two days of competition to give real support to the Irish Team in their endeavours to finish in the top 10 European teams over the weekends some 40 events.

The Irish Team for the European Athletics Team Championships will be competing against teams from eleven other European countries in Santry in just over 7 days time. These teams are:

Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland.

Dublin has hosted this prestigious event on five previous occasions, the last being in 1997.

Over 650 athletes, from twelve European Countries, will be competing in twenty events for Men and Women over the two days in Santry, and the excitement and anticipation is building daily. Only 7 DAYS To Go to the European Athletics Team Championships 1st League - Santry, Dublin.