Athletics and Football (extract)

220 ATHLETICS of founding a general governing body for amateur athletics. Finally the well-known tastes of Englishmen were recollected, and it was decided to invite every delegate to attend a meeting in the afternoon and a dinner in the evening. How far the latter part of the suggestion availed to overcome scruples it is, of course, impossible to conjecture; but in the result the meeting came offon April 24,1880. A set ofresolutionsto submit to the assemblywas drafted by Messrs.Wise, Jackson, and Shearman of the O.U.A.C., and on the evening before the meeting they werefurther discussedin conjunction with Mr. Walter Rye, who had come down from London for the purpose. The gathering was attended by twenty-seven delegates representing fifteen clubs, the Northern Association (sixteen clubs), and the Mid­ land Association(nine clubs), and at that meeting wasfounded the Amateur Athletic Association, which, at the end of six years, consistedof 154 clubs representingabout 20,000athletes. As the foundationof the A.A.A. represents a new and im - portant era in the history of athletic sport in this country, it may perhaps not be amiss to givea few further particulars of the men present at this first meeting at Oxford and of the resolu­ tions there come to. The representatives present were J. G. Chambers and A. G. Payne (of the A.A.C.); E. Storey, L. Knowles,and R. H. Macaulay(of the C.U.A.C.) jC. Herbert and H. Tomlinson(of the C.S.A.A.); J.W.Macqueen(of the German GymnasticSociety); J. Waddell (of the L.A.C.); J. Andertonand Erank Smith (ofthe MidlandCounties Association);R. Mullock (of the Newport,Monmouth, A.C.); C. E. Barlow,T. G. Sharpe, H. C. Earam, and T. M. Abraham (of the Northern Counties Association); J, Ingman (of the Northampton A.C.); C. E. Turner and J. E. Dixon (of the North of the Thames Cross Country Union); C. N. Jackson, W. N. Bruce, and M. Shearman (of the O.U.A.C.); J. Suddaby (of the Reading A.C.); J. Gibb (of the South London Harriers); W. Rye (of the Thames Hare and Hounds); W. Waddell (representing the United Hospitals A.C.); E. R. Wood (of the W T oodbridge A.C.); and B. R. Wise, who, as President of the O.U.A.C., took the chair. At this