Athletics of To-Day 1929

Athletics of To-day true, ridiculed early English ideas of sport, but to-day the study of athletic science is being prosecuted more earnestly in that country than anywhere else. In England we have no organisation that in any way corres– ponds with the system in vogue in America and Sweden, but the work of the Amateur Athletic Association is tending gradually towards decentralisation. There are District Asso– ciations in the North and Midlands and a strong Southern Committee. These are important institutions of old standing. The County movement in athletics is a more recent product. It originated from the Report of the Reconstruction Corn– mittee, appointed by the Amateur Athletic Association towards the end of the Great War, which suggested that a County Athletic Association should be set up in each county for the purpose of encouraging and directing athletic sport in the county and to hold County Championships. The A.A.A. adopted the Reconstruction Committee's report and in 1924, at the proposal of Mr. Wallace R. Har , of Bucking– hamshire, the A.A.A. Counties As ociation ommittee con– sidered the advisability of holding an Inter- ounty Team and Relay Championship as an incentive to the County movement. There were then eight counti s holding championship meetings of their own, and in August, 1925, the first Inter-County Championship Meeting was held at Stamford Bridge, London, and proved a great sporting success. This success 1 d to the formation of county associations throughout practically the whole of the Southern area, but matters moved much more slowly in the 11idlands, and the North continued to hold completely aloof from the movement. In conn ction with the first Inter-Counties Cross- ountry hampionship at Beacons– field, in rgz6, a meeting of county representatives was held and the Counties Athletic Union formed to take over the duties of the A.A.A. Counties Association ommitte . It is early days yet to speak of the utility of the C.A.U., but that it has in its hands the power to regenerate English athletic sport is a self– evident fact, provided its progress is planned upon common– sense principles.