Bredin on Running & Training

lo r , ll !: _- cc CHAPTER III. THE GOVERNING BODY. VERY interesting is it for all lovers of running to read, in the " Badminton" seri es on Athletics, an account of the commencement of amateur meetings in this country, and how, subsequently, the Amateur Athletic Association came into existence, now some twenty-four years ago. However, it is not my present intention to quote from that volume, as I intend later on to comment on some of the author's ideas stated in the chapter which he has entitled "Athletic Government." A great deal has for some time past been written on the bad state into which amateur athletics has fallen, and there is no gainsaying the fact that in recent years few public school and university athletes cared to follow this sport after their college days were over. That this was not simply caused by the mixing of the classes is, I believe, proved, as numbers of these men join football teams and pi ay for local cricket clubs, wherein more than fifty per cent. of the players have received a board-school educa tion. Then gentlemen play tennis, racquets, match their skill with profes– sionals a t golf, without any feeling of a loss of caste. Perhaps the principal of all the benefits sport has conferred on Great Britain arises from this mingling of the classes in their out-of-door amusements. /I