Athletics and Football (extract)

54 ATHLETICS CHAPTER II. A MODERN CHAMPIONSHIP MEETING, IN the foregoing chapter we have shown how the pastimes of running, leaping, and hurling of weights, which have always been followed by Englishmen as a means of amusement and for the display of rivalry, began rather more than a quarter of a century ago to be developed into a systematic sport, and havecome at the present time to be considered,like racingand cricket, as national institutions. As regards social attention, athletic sports were probablyat their zenith from1870 to 1875, for at that time the ' masses' had not begun to appear as amateur athletes upon the running-path. So far as wide-spread popularity amongst all classes is concerned, athletics have reached a height at the present time from which they may possibly fall, but which they can hardly exceed. As every pastime has its day, and it is possible that another age may know no more of athletic sports than the present age knows of cam- buc or the quintain, it may not be out of place at the present time to try to present to the uninitiated reader such a meeting as may be witnessed to-day,so far as the pen can avail to de­ scribe a stirring scene of life and movement. Every pursuit has its classicdays—days which are vividlyimpressed upon the memory of those who study the sport. One of these was the Oxford and Cambridge meeting of 1876, when M. J. Brooks, the Dark Blue President, jumped6 ft. 2^ in. in height, whenthere wasscarcely a foot of standing room at Eillie Bridge, and over 1,100/. wastaken from the fashionable crowd that thronged to see YoungOxfordcompete against YoungCambridge. Another