Athletics and Football (extract)

52 ATHLETICS a flourishing institution. In the spring of 1866 the club changed its name, and became, as it now is, the London AthleticClub. It is from the year1864, indeed, that amateur athletic sports as an institution maybe said to date. Not only did a regularly constituted athletic club begin in that year to hold open races, but the same seasonwitnessed the institution of the Inter-Uni­ versity sports. Negotiations were carried on in 1863 between the two Universities as to the holding of an Inter-'Varsity contest; but before anything could be arranged, the summer term with its cricket and boating arrived, and it was found impossible to get the athletes together. However,on March 3, 1864, the Cambridge men came over and met their Oxford brethren on the Christchurch Cricket Ground. On this occa­ sion neither side won the ' oddevent,' for the excellent reason that there was no ' odd event' to win. The programme con­ sisted of eight contests, and four werewon by each University. Since then it is hardly necessary to say that the meeting has been annual, although the University athletes did not come to London until 1867. The same year, 1864, saw the Civil Servants hold their first meeting—a meetingwhich still is an annual and important event; but it wantedyet a year or two beforeamateur athletics becamegeneral throughout the provincesas well as in London. In 1865 several football and cricket clubs promoted meetings, but it is not until 1866 that we hear of athletics being generally practised throughout the kingdom. By this time the amateurs had decided to have nothing to do with the professional 'peds' of the day, owing to the ' roping' and 'squaring' tactics of some of them whichwere notorious. At the beginning of 1866,when the Amateur Athletic Club was formed by some old University and London athletes, the prospectus announced that the club wasformed to ' supply the want of an established ground upon whichcompetitions in amateur athletic sports might take place, and to afford as completely as possible to all classes of gentle­ men amateurs the means of practising and competing against