AFTER therapeutic Thursday, a Friday famine saw the resumption of normal service from the Great Britain team. Firing blanks for most of the week, the squad enter the last two days of the European Championships facing their poorest medal return since 1966. The “heads must roll” calls are sure to grow louder.

The three bronze medals won on Thursday and the silver on Tuesday hardly represent value for the millions of pounds being poured into the sport annually in Britain. Even before the failure last night to win any of the 18 medals available — impossible without a representative in any of the six finals — the team had slipped to thirteenth in the table.

David Moorcroft, the UK Athletics chief executive, and Dave Collins, the performance director, are back on the ground that has become all too familiar for them, defending a sixth successive shockingly poor British team effort abroad since the 2004 Athens Olympics. Let alone medals, or career-best performances, few in the squad have managed even season’s best marks.

Sebastian Coe’s suggestion, after the World Championships in Helsinki last summer, that world-class overseas coaches be recruited, has been ignored. Lottery funding continues to reward mediocrity and athletes with a consistent record of failure still find their way into national teams. Then there are the daft ideas, such as marking athletes out of 10 and appointing Linford Christie as a mentor.

The debris of British failure piled up yesterday as Lisa Dobriskey failed to qualify for the 1,500 metres final only five months after winning the Commonwealth title and neither Jade Johnson nor Kelly Sotherton reached the final of the long jump. Johnson was injured in the warm-up and Sotherton short of her best.

Not since 1966 has Britain had it so bad at a European Championships and, arguably, the two gold medals won then, even if they were the only two medals, are worth more than the tally here so far. On that occasion, such was the concern that Denis Howell, the minister responsible for sport, aired his criticism in a lengthy speech to Birchfield Harriers at their annual dinner.

“I have become increasingly worried about the state of athletics in this country,” Howell told the assembled. He called on the Government to do more, never imagining the day when Lottery and Exchequer funding would yield athletics £6.593 million in one year, as is the case in the 2006/07 financial year. That and £50 million over six years to UK Athletics from Norwich Union.

While there is life, there is hope and Jo Pavey and Mo Farah, at 5,000 metres, Phillips Idowu, in the triple jump, Andy Turner, in the 110 metres hurdles, and the relay teams should nudge the medal count up over the weekend.