Athletics and Football (extract)

go ATHLETICS latter wasdoubtless an improved man when in 1877, i n a match with H. H. Sturt,he covered the quarter at Lillie Bridge in 5of seconds, but at any time Elborough at his best could, wethink, have givenfiveyards to the elder Shearman. Indeed, his trainers and the public never doubted that Elborough, had he been wound up for a quarter, could have got well inside 50 seconds. In those days, however, the feverishdesire for making records (which we think the athletes have caught from their cycling brethren) was not raging,and runners like Elborough liked to win their races and their championships without troubling to scamper over so many yardsof cinder a shade faster than some predecessor. In style Elborough ran veryerect, shooting his legs out in front of him. He was cleanly but not strongly built, and his excellenceas a runner must be set down to his perfect proportions. Up to the spring of 1876 we believe he never attempted more than 600 yards, and was in training for the Hundred Yards and Quarter Championshipsof 1876, but being dissatisfied with his speed, altered his mind at the last moment, and started for the Half Mile and the Quarter, win­ ning both withgreat ease. Ultimately he proposed to extend his practice to mile running, but being beaten in the provinces in the summer of 1877 at 1,000 yards byC. Hazenwood, he never afterwards made a show upon the path. In 1880, W. P. Phillips, who had been doing some fine performances at 220 yards, turned his attention to quarters, and had he run with a little more judgment in his initial attempt in the championshipof that year might have earned the title upon the first occasion he ran a quarter in public. Phillips, however, who was a very fast sprinter, seemed by some fatality bound to make a fiasco of all his attempts to win the Quarter-Mile Championship, and, although undoubtedly capable of a better performance at this distance than any Englishman since Elborough, either from nervousness or bad judgment, invariably spoilt his chances by running too slowly in the early part of the race. Thus he was beaten in 1880 by M. Shearman, in 1882 by H. R. Ball,and in 1883 byCowie,