Mel Watman got hooked on athletics when, aged 12, he attended the 1950 AAA Championships at the White City Stadium with a school party. His first heroes were McDonald Bailey, Arthur Wint and Roger Bannister. Later that year he discovered the magazine "Athletics Weekly" which would go on to play such an important role in his life. He was only 16 when "AW" published his first by-lined article and a few years later editor Jimmy Green put him in charge of compiling overseas news and results.
After three years of learning his trade as a journalist on a suburban newspaper and two years National Service in the RAF, he joined the staff of "AW" in 1961 as assistant editor, succeeding Jimmy Green as editor in 1968. He left the magazine in 1988 to co-edit "Athletics Today" and since 1993 he and Peter Matthews have co-edited and published the newsletter "Athletics International".
He has written numerous books on athletics, including five editions of "The Encyclopaedia of Athletics", "History of British Athletics", "All-Time Greats of British Athletics" and the official histories of the Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) and Women's AAA, as well as editing the IAAF's monumental centenary book. He has attended nine Olympic Games, starting with Rome in 1960, and reported in detailed event by event form on every Games between then and 2016.
In this book, in effect a personalised history of UK and world athletics from the 1950s right through to 2017, numerous extracts from his published work at the time will, hopefully, convey the excitement and admiration created by the leading athletes of the day.
Mel is a founder member of the National Union of Track Statisticians (NUTS) and the British Athletics Writers' Association, of which he is honorary president. In 2013 he was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame.
An athlete of very modest standard, he completed the New York Marathon in 1980 and the inaugural London Marathon in 1981. He and his wife Pat live in the North West London suburb of Stanmore.