Charles van Commenee signalled a significant u-turn in UK Athletics policy last night by priming a crack team of former Olympians to get distance running back on track.

The past has been pockmarked by old pros lamenting that their knowledge has been overlooked, but the new head coach has stopped the sniping by creating what he termed “a league of experience”. He has appointed Ian Stewart, an Olympic bronze medal-winner at 5,000 metres, as national endurance coach and has set up an advisory group, comprising Lord Coe, who won the 1,500 metres at both the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, Steve Cram, the former world champion over the same distance, Paula Radcliffe, the world record-holder for the women's marathon, Brendan Foster, Liz McColgan and Dave Bedford to assist him.

The group met in Monaco yesterday and Van Commenee said: “I won't shut my eyes to the great history of British athletics. How blessed we are [to be] in a position to do this. If we were Swedish or Polish, we could not have such a group. It's something we should exploit and utilise. It's such a big asset, but it's been a hidden asset. Maybe it takes a foreigner to brush the dust off.”

Stewart, who coached Britain's last real 10,000 metres hopeful, Karl Keska, replaces the outgoing Alan Storey and said that he wanted to introduce large training groups. “A lot of people think they have a secret formula, but there isn't one,” he said. “Most of it is hard work and there's a fairly big chunk of that which is advantageous to be done in big groups.

“It's not our athletes [that is the problem], it's the manner [in which] our athletes have been brought up. There's a feeling that anything that comes out of Africa is better than us, so we have to break that down. We have to get back to some old- fashioned work ethics, too, because I think we've forgotten that.”

Stewart also had some forthright words on the cult of the coach. “I sometimes get the feeling that our coaches are more about our coaches than our athletes,” he said. “We want superstar coaches and they want to be famous.”

The advisory group will be a forum for ideas and will meet every two months, although not all members will attend. Radcliffe will help when she can, offering expert advice on matters such as altitude training.

Van Commenee's open-mindedness has also involved talking to a raft of former coaches and performance directors, including Dave Collins and Max Jones. “This is not a one-man band,” Van Commenee said. “But does one person have to make the final decision? Yes.”

Stewart, who said he wanted a much-improved competition programme, will continue in his role as meeting director for Fast Track, which runs UKA's big events, and will use his contacts to place British athletes in top meetings abroad.