EVEN TO the Corinthians grown accustomed to the changing values of modern sport, it was a chastening experience.

BLE, doing what it does best, threw open the gates of Santry Stadium last weekend for public approval of the first European Cup athletics meeting to be staged in Dublin since 1994.

In terms of depth of quality, it was, almost certainly, the biggest athletics presentation in Ireland in modern years. And it came with a price tag not much short of £250,000.

It featured two current Olympic champions, two former European titleholders and, in particular, a repeat of the Olympic 100 metres hurdles final between Lyudmila Engquist and Brigita Bukovec which so enthralled the watching millions less than 12 months ago.

The response of the Irish sporting public to this imposing array of talent was such, that when all the vested parties were accounted for, the attendance on Sunday barely reached four figures. And that was a couple of hundred more than turned up for the opening segment of the meeting, the previous day.

Three miles down the road, still on Dublin's northside, some 25,000 enthusiasts went through the turnstiles at Croke Park to watch the Gaelic footballers of Kildare and Laois contest a Leinster championship first round tie.

A pertinent illustration of the eccentricities of Irish sporting tastes or a leading statement on the decline of track and field athletics as a major player in big time international sport?

The explanation probably holds an element of both theories but is more realistically interpreted, as a painful indictment of the modern version of the first and most ancient of all the sporting disciplines.

On the last occasion Ireland hosted an European Cup fixture, a crowd of 3,000 presented themselves at Santry on a memorable day when the home team recorded no fewer than nine individual successes.

That was quite the biggest athletics crowd in Dublin since Eamonn Coghlan, on a rising tide of international acclaim, persuaded the masses to follow him to Belfield for meetings with, among others, John Walker and Steve Ovett in the 1970s.

Even those crowds, however, paled in comparison to the golden days of the Ronnie Delany era when crowds of up to 25,000 turned out for some of his Dublin appearances, before and after his Olympic 1,500 metres triumph.

That established the tradition for middle distance running in this country and the first point which ought to be made is that there is no male in the modern crop of 1,500 metres runners, who approximates to either Delany or Coghlan in terms of charisma.

There is, too. the consideration that BLE, the governing body, has often been seen to be at odds with some of its more prominent American-based members.

This led to scepticism on the one side and a perceived lack of loyalty on the other, to the overall detriment of the sport in this country.

And yet to characterise the modern malaise of athletics as purely an Irish phenomenon is to ignore the disturbing signs of decay which have been surfacing in the sport with ever increasing frequency.

The televised pictures of the track and field action in Atlanta last year, attracted global audiences measured in billions. And those figures may well be repeated in two months time when Athens summons the bluebloods of the sport, for the world championships.

Removed from these peaks of public interest, however, the discipline currently projects a sad image. America, who gave it so many of its cult figures, can no longer sustain it in its new professional format.

In Europe, last year's finals of the European Cup Super League in Madrid, were watched by an attendance of only 5,000 and for all the money on offer, the reality is that no more than three of the Grand Prix meetings, those at Zurich, Oslo and Brussels, are capable of attracting capacity crowds.

It is fashionable these days to lay all our woes at the door of television. And in that, surely, there is a heavy element of irony for was not this the medium which brought sport, with all its imperfections, to the waiting millions.

Undeniably, however, television has been responsible for the artificially paced races on the Grand Prix circuit which have spawned the relatively new concept of time trialling and led to the erosion of the old qualities in head to head competition.

In the same way as it devalued professional boxing with a proliferation of federations and weight divisions, television is now impoverishing athletics with its unashamed gimmickry witness the bizarre meeting of Donovan Bailey and Michael Johnson over 50 metres at Toronto earlier this month.

And yet, that is scarcely half the story. When it comes right down to it, the ills of track and field are less the responsibility of those who seek to exploit it, as those who aspire to administer it.

The International Amateur Athletics Federation, a body which has never been perceived as the most efficient in the world, has for many, failed in its charter. And thanks to inept, indecisive leadership, athletics is now to some degree, out of control and increasingly at the mercy of a handful of professional agents.

Sadly, it is seen to be manipulated by greedy, self-centred people who in the pursuit of excellence, by natural means or otherwise, have trampled on many of the old values. And more than the scattering of spectators at Santry Stadium last Sunday, that is cause for the deepest self analysis.

Linford Christie will spear-head Britain's European Cup challenge by racing in a sprint double in Munich on June 21st and 22nd.

The former Olympic and world champion, with 15 victories in the competition behind him, will mark his likely final appearance in a British vest over 100m and 200m.