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Friday night was a rather wet way to bow out of fifteen years of watching the athletics grand summer meet at Crystal Palace. Leaving the two wheels back at SW8 base was the first mistake; forgetting the pain that is Crystal Palace by public transport was the second.

In-between dodging the South London showers, a combination of tube (aborted,) mainline (didn’t even get past the aborted stage) and then finally being Bus Stop Johnnies, finally saw @AnnaJCowen and I arrive in SE19 just as the women javelin throwers were going through their warm ups.

It turned out to be perfect timing, as we managed to miss the Cinderella events that are hyped up out of all proportion. Covered seats in the West Stand were a saviour. Pity the poor women javelin throwers, who came perilously close to spearing themselves with a slippery when wet approach.

The annual Crystal Palace meet itself remains the jewel on the London athletics scene. 20,000+ athletics fans, year in, year out can’t all be wrong. But something is about to change – something called 2012 is waiting in the sporting wings to steal all the glory.

It is difficult to see how the tradition of the famous Crystal Palace Golden Mile can survive post 2012. The South London stadium looks almost Dickensian in relation to its East London younger looking cousin. Even with the athletics future over Stratford unclear come the close of the Olympics, Crystal Palace is an old girl that has lost any sense of former glory.

Failing to attract the star of world athletics may have been because of tax reasons, but it is unlikely that Usain Bolt will turn down the opportunity to run in an Olympic stadium in future years.

In the absence of the fastest man alive, the path was clear for Tyson Gay to clean up in the flagship event of the 100m. The concluding party piece is something that Crystal Palace manages to stage rather well. Five minutes of hype, and then the hush before the BANG! as the blink and you’ll miss it moment is played out right in front of you.

But for how long can this be an annual event in the South London sporting calendar? Big name sponsors are already absent from years gone by, and the dilution of the Friday night meet to become spread across the whole weekend has only weakened the appeal.

The hour and a half hellish journey back to SW8 base was the equivalent of 540 separate 100m races being run. Time and patience came close to getting the better of @AnnaJCowen and I. The Crystal Palace meet looks like going the same way.