Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC GOVERNMENT 2 1 7 was the rising strength and popularity of the other great metro­ politan club, the L.A.C., the A.A.C. gradually began to decay. The original members of the A.A.C. ceased to take any active part in its welfare,and the fewnewmembers who joined became members simply for the purpose of training upon the club- ground at LillieBridge,the club holdingno other sports except the championship meeting. To such a stage of apathy had the club sunk in 1876 that an unfriendlycritic declared it had only three active members—the secretary, the pony, and the roller. Up to this time the L.A.C. meetings—the most im­ portant in London—were held on the A.A.C. ground at Lillie Bridge; but in 1876 a final rupture occurred between the A.A.C. and L.A.C. over ' gate-money' arrangements, and in 1877 the L.A.C. departed to its ownground at StamfordBridge. In 1877 and 1878 the championship meeting still was held without objection under the management of the A.A.C. at Lillie Bridge,upon the Monday followingthe Oxfordand Cam­ bridge sports, although a strong feeling was growing up in London and the provinces that the date of the fixture gave an unfair advantage to University men. The real truth of the matter wasthat in the twelve years that had passed since the foundation of the championship meeting,the state of athletic societyhad undergone a vital change, and the A.A.C. had failed to 'move with the times.' In 1866and the next few years the University runners were by far the most important section of the athletic community, both in number and merit, and pro­ vided about two-thirds of the entries to the sports, while the few Londoners and provincials who were athletes were in a social position which enabled them to find leisure enough to train in the spring to meet the University runners. Before 1878 a newclass of runners had sprung up both in London and the provinces. The provincial runners were (as theystill are) for the most part drawn from the ' mechanic, artizan, and labourer' class of the community. In the North they were accepted as amateurs ; at Lillie Bridge, where the Henley de­ finition of an amateur held good, they were, accordingto the