Caulfield Little Athletics Centre has a proud history and tradition. Our journey began on the 5th of June
1969, when a motion was carried that Glenhuntly Athletics Club (seniors) take steps to start a Little
Athletics Centre in Caulfield. On the 4th of September 1969, a motion was carried that a sub-committee
be formed to organise a public meeting aimed at establishing a Little Aths Centre in Caulfield.
The sub-committee members were: Trevor Vincent, Bill Coupe, Ian Sivell, Peter Colthup, Gus Theobald,
Tony Cook & D Jones. And so, it all began on the 22nd of November 1969 at 9.00am on the Glenhuntly
Football Ground behind Caulfield Racecourse with 500 registered athletes. There has been a lot of
change since that first competition.
Due to the large numbers, Caulfield Little Aths moved to the current site on the corner of North and
Murrumbeena Roads, which at the time was the local football ground and tip. With the support of the
City of Glen Eira Council (then City of Caulfield), a new athletic track, Duncan Mackinnon Reserve, was
established. Whilst the track was under construction, competition was held at the rear of
Murrumbeena Secondary College, (now a housing estate). In 1976 we moved back to Duncan
Mackinnon Reserve.
We moved briefly at the start of the 1994/95 season whilst the track was upgraded to its present high
standard.
In 2005/2006 Caulfield Little Aths entered the World Wide Web with the commencement of our
website: www.caulfieldlittleaths.org.au
The 2006/2007 season saw the introduction of our current uniform, and the NARS recording system.
During the 2009/2010 season, we upgraded our electronic timing gates to include a wireless starting
system and also added a Barcode recording system. In 2013/14 we switched to Result HQf or our online
recording and results.
The start of our 2015/16 season saw the introduction of a new finish gate system – designed to
communicate directly with Results HQ (our online recording and results program).
During the 2017/18 season the Duncan Mackinnon Athletics track was replaced during the summer
resulting in the season being disrupted and a number of our regular competitions being held with our
neighbourhood clubs (Mentone, Sandringham, and Brighton).
The club celebrated our 50th Anniversary in 2019/20 by hosting our first Open Day in many years, and
a gala dinner which saw many former athletes and life members gather to look back on and celebrate
a fabulous first five decades.
COVID struck in 2020 and provided unprecedented challenges for us all, however through the hard
work of the committee we were able to work with council to continue offering training, weekly
competitions and SMR events for our athletes by abiding by strict protocols and modifying how we
operated.
With the continued growth in membership numbers, season 2020/21 saw the club invest in a second
set of timing gates, which enabled us to start running events on both straights in parallel.
This opened up much greater programming flexibility, enabling us to further optimise our programs
and cater for additional age groups and numbers while maintaining a pre-noon finish time.