An Athletics Compendium

The Uterature of Athletics strychninelozengesin traininga psychologically-troubledistance runner and indicates that cocainehadalreadybeendeployed in athletics. Here wemust rememberthat cocaine wascontainedin Coca Colauntil 1904,and that evenheroinwas availableon prescription in the UnitedStatesuntil1898. Nowhere is the difference between the 'scientific' approach of early twentieth centurywritersand the roughand readyempiricism of the nineteenth century'trainer' more clearlydemonstrated thanin the works ofMussabini and Webster. Successin Athletics (1919) is a remarkable work, marking Webster's continuing attempts to introduce scientificrationaleto British athleticscoaching,'Englishmenare slowto overcometheir constant faultof tryingto "muddle through" in sport or battle'.Alas,evenWebsterhad his eccentricities.'There are today ... in BritishEast Africa... fellow-subjects ... capable of jumpingwithease9'0" high,from a slightlyraisedmound.' Indeed. 'In long jump,the angleof take-offmust alwaysbe 45°.' Yes, but onlyif the aimis to jumpabout 5 metres. Successin Athletics is also remarkable in beingthe first and last athletics manualto show concern for the male testicles:'in standinglong jump,if some support is not worn, the testiclesare severelyshaken and in the courseof time, variocelesmay result'. The late 1920scanbe seenas a watershed,the end, in the literature,of the Barclay- type 'trainer'. For, though Mussabiniwas to study slow-motion film and photographic sequences of Muybridge, these studies produced little in the way of technical development,onlythe 'cross-arm' action and ludicroussprintingbody angles. BothF. A. M.Webster andSamMussabiniwere, in their own ways,seekersafter truth, the publicschool-educated Websterand uneducatedMussabini. Because,for allhis lack of technical knowledge, for all his reverence for archaic professional training methods,Mussabini had, quite literally,an excellenttrack record at international level. Webster,for all his science, had none. For all his fecundity (hewas the world's most prolific athletics writer in the period 1912-1948), Webster tended to be frugal with personalreferences,either to himselfor to athleteswhom he had coached. In Coaching and Care of Athletes, hislast technicalwork, F. A. M.Websterlifts the veil,albeitonlypartly.He revealsthat he hadbeen retiredfrom the armyin 1921because of 75%disability and that he wassubsequentlycoached in javelin bySamMussabini in 1923, at the ageof forty-five. His actual knowledge of javelin-throwing would have been lost on a threepenny-bit. When we started working together ... for two months... Mussabini allowed me one pipe aftereach meal, hadme walking five to ten miles each day... Webster'saccount of hisyear with Mussabiniis, strangely,the only recordwe haveof Mussabini inaction, albeitin an event withwhichhe was totallyunfamiliar.It endedwith Webster beatinghis personal best by about eighteen feet, but failingat the 1924 AAA championshipsas a resultof excessive throwingduring a coachingtour. It is odd that this brief relationship,during which a runningcoach (Mussabini) instructed a middle-aged field events coach (Webster), constitutes the only personal accountwhichwe possess in the formal literature of Mussabini'scoaching-skills. Alas, his most famous pupil,Harold Abrahams,left little in his writingsdescribinghis timewith [xxxviii ]