Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

ATHLETICS IN THE SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES races between mixed teams of past and present Public School boys. It also began a system of demonstration matches, usually on the handicap relay principle, at the Schools themselves, a policy now followed by the L.A.C., and there can be little doubt that such methods of instruction, inculcating both the team spirit and good style, will ultimately prove beneficial to British athletics. The movement has not been confined to the Public Schools. Through– out the length and breadth of the land-especially, perhaps, among the Schools of the South and the Home Counties; but all have been con– cerned-the idea has spread with vigour. In 192 5 a Schools' A.A. was formed and held Inter-County Schoolboy Championships in London, in which over twenty counties competed. Moreover, the counties them– selves, and great bodies like the Middlesex Schools' Association, arrange matches and competitions for boys outside the great Public Schools, which, of course, have their own annual sports and in many cases an Inter-School match as well. Reverting to the Universities, their several activities formed one of the most significant post-war movements in England. In l 920, immediately after the Olympic Games at Antwerp, those two great Oxford and Cambridge athletes, Bevil Rudd and Philip Baker, fulfilled the intention of G. R. L. Anderson and others and inaugurated the Achilles Club by staging at Queen's Club the greatest international relay match ever seen between the United States Olympic Team and the combined teams of the British Empire. The foundation of the Achilles Club marked the re-entry of Oxford and Cambridge athletes in large numbers into open competition, both at home and abroad, and at the two Universities many innovations occurred. The Inter-College system of sports meetings, run on the league basis at Cambridge and on a combination ofleague and knock-out bases at Oxford, was revitalised, and Inter-College relay races were developed. The Oxford-Cambridge relay races were founded in 1920, and are held every December at each University in turn, and the Inter-'Varsity Sports pro– gramme was revised. The ten events which had stood since 1903, namely, mo, 440, 880, mile, 3 miles, high hurdles, high and long jumps, weight and hammer, were changed, the hammer going out and the pole jump and 220 yards low hurdles coming in. And, perhaps as a sequel to the transference of Anglo-American matches from Queen's Club to Stamford Bridge, the 'Varsity Sports also moved there in 1929, the Queen's track being converted into tennis courts. The other Universities, sometimes called the Civic Universities, were not far behind. In 1919 the Universities' Athletic Union was consti– tuted with the object of advancing all games among its members. Annual track and .field championships were inaugurated, in which the following Universities have taken part: Aberystwyth, Bangor, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Durham, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton, Swansea and Trinity 91