You can find all things to do with Gateshead from the Gateshead Council website.

Click on the map for a detailed road map of the area and directions. Enter postcode NE10 0EF as the destination to find detailed directions from your own home. Travel directions: The easiest way to get there from the South, to avoid the slow bit going through Gateshead, is to take the A1(M)north and just after the Washington Services stay in the outside lane following the signs to the Tyne Tunnel. The motorway then drops down a long hill with nice views of the whole of Tyneside, to the end of the motorway. Turn left there onto the dual carriageway (A184), following signs to Gateshead and Newcastle. The stadium is on the right, a few miles along that road. If travelling from Northumberland, you'll already know how to get there!

Sky TV

If anyone has any problem with their being shown on TV, they are advised not to take part - it is not possible to prevent any particular person from being in camera view.

Event Locations

The stadium has undergone changes since this picture was created - there is a new building between the main stand and the south terrace. Some hurdles heats on Friday morning will be run concurrently - the back straight will be used to run hurdles heats at the same time as other events on the front straight: The heats of Junior Boys 80m Hurdles, Inter Girls 80m Hurdles, and Junior Girls 75m Hurdles will be on the back straight. Due to ongoing reconstruction work in the inside of the arena, the shot putt area has been moved to be just in front of the new building near the start line. The North Terrace remains inaccessible due to ongoing building work. Not all of the seating in the South Terrace will be available - the stadium staff will open only areas which are required to accommodate the demand - please don't expect to buy one ticket and then have a whole row to yourself! Because of the size of the Championships, it is impossible to hold all field events within the arena. The Hammer and Discus throws will be held in the fields adjacent to the Stadium. See the FAQs page for further details about this. The location of the events shown here is subject to change.

Timetable of Events

All competitors will be issued with the full printed programme which will be on sale at the Championships. It is the ESAA policy not to publish the full programme on the website - sales of programmes with the sponsors' advertising they contain are a major source of income without which the Championships could not be held.

Please see the FAQs page for further details and answers to many other Frequently Asked Questions about the Championships and the timetable.

Official Accreditation

• Competition areas - restricted to accredited athletes taking part in events, officials, and accredited photographers
• Warm-up area - restricted to accredited athletes with an event within 30 minutes, and accredited team stewards
• Marshalling area - restricted to accredited athletes with an event within 20 minutes
• Athlete's stand - restricted to accredited athletes, and accredited team stewards

Tickets

Tickets are available from the Gateshead Box Office Website - scroll down to the 6th and 7th July or use the following links which are copied from the Gateshead website. Note that there are separate links for each day and ticket type:

• Friday Tyne & Wear Stand

• Friday South Terrace / East Stand

• Saturday Tyne & Wear Stand

• Saturday South Terrace / East Stand

All tickets are unallocated seating on a first come first served basis.

Public car parking will be available at Bede School at a cost of £3 - there is no facility to book car parking.

Please contact the Gateshead Event Office on 0191 433 6900 for queries about disabled access facilities.

Prices

Competition Rules

Permissible Clothing

7. In all Championships competitors must wear at least vest and shorts (or equivalent clothing) in registered County Colours which are clean and so designed and worn, as not to be objectionable even if wet. All visible clothing must conform with registered County colours.

To deal with some specific queries therefore: Cropped bra tops are not vests by definition and therefore not permitted. Vests by definition must reach the waist at least. Shorts or briefs (in county colours) are the norm for girls. Similarly cycle type lycra shorts, as long as they are shorts and not leggings, are permitted, but only if they are in the registered County colours (not just an approximation of the colours). Leggings by definition covering the leg below the knee, and body suits, are not vests or shorts and are therefore not permitted. The main problems in the past have been the wearing of cycle type shorts that are not in County colours, and worn under the correct coloured shorts but clearly visible. This especially applies to the boys where the cycle type shorts are longer that the County shorts. However, if the shorts are the lycra type and do not cover the knees then these are allowed, as long as they are in the registered County colours (ie. the same colour as the County colours, not an approximation to them). The pictures here indicate the sort of clothing that will result in athletes not being allowed to compete.

With the meeting being televised this year, County team managers have been warned that ESAA will 'pull' athletes from an event if incorrectly attired.

Results

PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO CONTACT US during the competition days. This is for a number of reasons:

1. We won't have time to read or respond to mails during the days and evenings of the competition - we will be 150% occupied in running the event results systems and ensuring that the live TV is maintained with up to the second information.
2. We are running from relatively slow mobile phone internet connections - any messages sent to us will simply clog up our ability to update results.
3. The sort of queries we get are usually in the form
   • when will the results be published?
   • did our bart/lisa/kyle/wendy get into the final?
   • Which semi-final is our bart/lisa/kyle/wendy in?

Facilities

The Pole Vault will be located in the main arena on the back straight, along with Javelin, Shot, and Long/Triple Jump and High Jump competition sites. Discus and Hammer will be located in the fields outside the main Stadium. Vaulting poles will not be provided. Starting blocks will be provided for those events where they are permitted and only these starting blocks will be allowed. Starting blocks may be used by Senior Boys and Senior Girls in all rounds, and in Finals only by Juniors and Intermediates.

The maximum length of spike for all track events is 6 mm, and 9mm for the field events.

Throwing equipment will be provided for all events. Competitors may use their own implements, subject to the implement being approved by the Field Referee. (ESAA Track and Field Competition Rule 29). Please note that any individual athlete may submit no more than two implements for approval. All personal equipment should be adequately insured. The ESAA insure all equipment during the actual competition but this is not a ‘blanket cover’ for the whole championships.

Entry List of Athletes

Every effort is made to be accurate when typing athletes' names but inevitably some mistakes occur from time to time as names are passed on via many different people before they reach us. Last year we successfully introduced a scheme to enable athletes to register their own details online to ensure that their names are spelled correctly - more than 80% of athletes have registered with us this year so their names should be correct here (assuming athletes know how to spell their name!). This year we have an extremely tight deadline for entries - we only have one day to process everything and get the event programme ready to be printed. So, to try to ensure that all names are spelled correctly, names of athletes nominated by their County as potential team members are listed here. We ask you to please check your name for the correct spelling. Our print deadline is 9am Tuesday 26th June.

You have just until Monday evening to check that your name is correct - this information appears in the programme, on TV, on the scoreboard, on tee-shirts, and in the results, so it is in your interest to check these lists NOW.

If you find any error, please use the 'contact us' button on the main menu and give the correct spelling together with your County, age group, and event - but please only do this once. Corrections will be noted and our event files will be modified accordingly, but because of the high volume of other mail we get in the run up to the Championships we don't have time to acknowledge each mail individually. The team lists shown online here won't be updated with spelling changes - this is because the data used to produce these files has already been moved into a number of other administration and results programs and we only have time to edit the files we need to go forwards.

Any corrections received by Monday evening 25th June should be in time to be included in the programme and on teeshirts. Corrections received after that time are too late for the programme and teeshirts, but will be included in the results / scoreboard / TV displays.

Please DO NOT CONTACT US REPEATEDLY about spelling changes - we don't have time to reply. We get many hundreds of emails at this time of year so please don't overload us with repeated queries. Our results administration files will be updated, but the lists shown here won't be.

Click your County to view your team.
Avon,    Bedfordshire,    Berkshire,    Buckinghamshire,    Cambridgeshire,    Cheshire,    Channel Islands,    Cleveland,    Cornwall,    Cumbria,    Derbyshire,    Devon,    Dorset,    Durham,    Essex,    Gloucestershire,    Gtr Manchester,    Hampshire,    Hereford & Worcestershire,    Hertfordshire,    Humberside,    Kent,    Lancashire,    Leicestershire,    Lincolnshire,    London,    Merseyside,    Middlesex,    Northamptonshire,    Northumberland,    Norfolk,    Nottinghamshire,    North Yorkshire,    Oxfordshire,    Shropshire,    Somerset,    Staffordshire,    Suffolk,    South Yorkshire,    Surrey,    Sussex,    Warwickshire,    West Midlands,    West Yorkshire,    Wiltshire,   

...so why is it so hard to get the spellings right then? Many might just be typing errors, but for interest, in 2009 there were 824 different firstnames, and 2277 different surnames, many of which can be spelled in different ways (even spelled can be spelt in two ways!). Frequently, athletes' names can be passed on to team managers via two or three people, often by phone.

The nature of County teams means that the team managers aren't in daily contact with athletes and quite often they've never come across them before. In such cases it is all too easy to hear a name by phone and spell it as one thinks it should be - sometimes schools don't have the correct spellings in their own files. Some names just have too many spellings - even William Shakespeare couldn't spell his own name consistently from day to day!

Look at some the variations just of firstnames we've seen in recent years - all of these have been verified to be real:

Aidan, Aiden, Aedan Beccy, Becki, Becky, Becy, Beki Darryl, Daryl, Darill Eliot, Eliott, Elliot, Elliott Freddie, Freddy Georgie, Georgy, Georgi Hannah, Hanna Jonathan, Jonathon, Johnathan, Johnathon, Jonothan Kayley, Kayleigh Martin, Martyn, Martainn Mathew, Matthew, Mattheus Michael, Micheal Philip, Phillip, Phillipe

Rachel, Rachael, Racheal Rebeca, Rebecca, Rebeka, Rebekah Robin, Robyn Sammy, Sammie Sara, Sarah Stacey, Stacie Stef, Steph Stewart, Stuart Teresa, Teressa, Theresa Thomas, Tomas, Tomaz, Thomass Vicki, Vicci, Vicky, Vikki Zac, Zak

...the list of alternative surname spellings is just too long to publish here but Johnson, Jonson, Johnston, or Johnstone; Thompson, Thomson, or Tompson; and Howarth or Haworth are regulars! Then there's the whole load of Mc and Mac families to recognise.

We also have frequent problems with long multi-barrelled surnames, and we are seeing increasingly more double-barrelled forenames too. We already hire in a widescreen TV display for the scoreboard, but we simply can't afford one wide enough to display some names, so we need to abbreviate them as best as we can so that they fit in the space availble onscreen, in the printed programme, and in the results.

Finally, thanks to Tom Cox, Ben Cox and Tom Guy who have the easiest names to check!

Not Selected for your County team?

Over 1700 athletes are entered in the National Championships each year, but at least 2 or 3 times that number will probably be disappointed not to have been selected. PLEASE don't contact us to complain that you, your Bart, Lisa, Kyle, or Wendy, didn't make your County team. Team selection is entirely in the hands of each County Team Manager and the ESAA has no say in how or why teams are selected as they are. Sorry...but we simply cannot respond to hundreds of e-mails - please read the FAQs page which answers all the frequently asked questions.

In particular, please note that teams are strictly limited in the number of athletes they can select, and that ESAA entry standards are for guidance to team selectors - they are not trigger points for automatic selection. A full explanation of selection procedures and limitations is given in the FAQs page.

Team Travel Arrangements

Accommodation

Athlete accommodation is normally in hotels or University Halls of Residence, supervised by their team managers - the exact location will be contained in the the letter which will be sent to each team member by the County Team Manager. These facilities are not open to the general public / friends / family. Athletes must remain with their team at all times - failure to comply with this rule will lead to disqualification from this event, and possibly future events too.

Official Merchandise

www.sportserve.co.uk

ESAA event tee-shirts, sweatshirts, and other items will be available at the event from our official supplier Sportserve. After the event you can contact them via their website.

Photographs

Photographs of ESAA events are published in the athletics press, local media, on this website, and this year on live TV. All ESAA photographs are taken in accordance with the guidelines relating to photos in schools published by the Information Commissioner with regard to the Data Protection Act 1998. Photographs and videos can be taken by the public from public areas for personal use only. They may not be published in any form (including personal or club websites) without written permission from the ESAA.

Photographers at ESAA events wishing to publish photos in the media or in any other form (eg. internet websites), or wishing to use them for anything other than personal use must be officially registered and accredited by the ESAA. A list of officially accredited photographers will be published on this website shortly after the event along with their contact details. Access to competition areas for the purpose of taking photographs is restricted to ESAA accredited photographers only. This rule will be strictly enforced. It is not possible to prevent photographs of any particular individual from appearing in the media, nor on TV since the event is to be televised live. If this is a problem for you, you are advised not to take part in the event. If any parent wishes a particular picture of their child appearing on this website to be removed please contact us and we will do our best to resolve any problem.