Athletics and Football (extract)

216 ATHLETICS CHAPTER VIII. ATHLETIC GOVERNMENT. ONE of the most remarkable features about modern English athletic lifeis the capacity of the athlete for self-government. As soon as any game or sport becomes popular in any district, or throughout the country, clubs are formed; the clubs con­ glomerate into district associations; and the latter finally be­ come gathered together into a national governing body. All these bodies, from the smallest club to the largest association, are the outcome of voluntaryeffort; they are worked,as a rule, in a sensible and businesslike manner, and the officers, in almost every case, are unpaid. Football, cricket, cycling, athletics, paper-chasing,have all their governing bodies •,and at a week's notice the best team at any sport can be picked from the whole country, or the popular opinion as to any change or innovation in the sport ascertained. All this discipline and organisation is so well known nowadays as to excite little notice ; but when fairlyconsidered, it is really marvellous,and most creditable to the capacity and sound sense of the English sportsman. I he 'Jockey Club' of athletics, the Amateur Athletic Association, did not take its rise until comparatively late in athletic history. For a great many years the Amateur Athletic Club, which wasformed in London from the chief University and London athletes of the day, and which instituted the championship meeting in 1866, assumed a position in athletics like that of the M.C.C. in cricket, and no other governing body was needed. From variouscauses, however, the chief of which