Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC MEETINGS 185 of 100 yards each at the ends, and the quarter-mile races, as they were originally run upon the ground, were run over 200yards out of 440 upon a curve. The ground is now redeemed by a very long 'straight' of 250 yards extending up one side. The 250 yards and 220 yards races are run off on this long straight, and the first 250 yards of the quarter-mile races are also contested over this ground, which accounts, in a great measure, for the fast times done in short races at Stamford Bridge. In long races, where the pace is not so great, probably the long slight curves do not interfere with the times; so that there is now little fault to be found withthe shape of the Stamford Bridge course. We are stronglyof opinion, however,that in every path there should be as much straight and as little corner as possible, or, in other words, that the path should be quad­ rangularwith rounded corners, and not an oval with the two sides flattened. The fault of long curved stretches is also con­ spicuousat Oxford, though not to such a degree as at Stamford Bridge; but, on the other hand, there is no long straight at Oxford,and in a 300 yards' race on the Oxford ground half the distance has to be run round a curve. The long curves are most unfair in handicaps, and also in any race where there is a large field, as one runner passing another may have to come right out from the inside of the track and then have to come in again at once so as not to lose ground ; besides this, the continual running in a curve must necessarilyshorten the stride, and more ground is lost thereby than upon a short but sharper turn. The old Marston ground, although laid in a swampand rightly deserted by the O.U.A.C. in 1877,was, we think, made in a better shape than the Iffley Road ground, although the cinder track at the latter place is certainly very fast and dry. The Cambridge track at Fenner's is both well- laid and well-shaped, the only drawback to it being that the levels are not true. The starting-points of the quarter-mile, 300 or 220 yards races are higher than the finish, so that many ofthe fast times made over these distances at Fenner's are really untrustworthy. The Fenner's track, too, was built with the