Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS the Midland Counties from eight to fifteen. The National Cross-Country Union was elected to membership, but a proposal that it should control cross-country running and act as a Sub-Committee of the A.A.A. was lost by a very large majority, though in later years it has been recognised as controlling cross-country running. The Association was beginning to launch out. It was decided that an office should be hir«:>d for Committee meetings, and the receipt of all communications, but the rent was not to exceed £3 5 per annum. After a discussion on the ground of expense, Mr. Arthur Cook was elected as the first " paid Assistant Secretary," and as a final effort in "new ideas," an official entry form for events was adopted. In r 887 the report stated that the Association was the recognised governing body for athletics throughout England and Wales, and steps had not been taken in any locality by Clubs or competitors to set the A.A.A. Laws at defiance. Still, indignant individuals were encountered at times, the Committee recording its unanimous opinion that "Mr. --, the Hon. Secretary of the -- Harriers, when called before them, was inexcusably wanting in decorum." Those who have attended the Annual Meeting in the afternoon in recent years, when the business is usually finished in time for tea, will be interested to hear that the Annual Meetings in the early years were held in the evening and frequently lasted until close on midnight, and, indeed, in some years were then adjourned for a" final heat " on another day. The rules for competitions became compulsory in r 889, and a scale of penalties in handicaps was proposed to apply to competitors who had won first prizes during the four days preceding the date of competition, i.e., since their original entry was made. Expressions of opinion often endure a long time. In the Minute Book, between the leaves opposite this decision, I found an autograph letter from a very well-known official in the Northern Counties: " I think that for concentrated and appalling idiocy, the men responsible for drawing up the scale of penalties cannot be beaten." Clubs were asked to run their races left-hand inside, almost the universal practice for many years, though the races at the old Stamford Bridge ground and Queen's Club were decided right-hand inside. The payment of railway fares to those attending meetings of the General Committee was limited to three from each division. It was submitted as a compulsory rule, but carried as a recommendation, that programmes · should be posted in advance to competitors. This recommendation has been observed regularly in the North and Midlands, but on very rare occasions in the South. Most astonishing of all in a busy year was a proposal" to consider the constitution of the Association, with a view to its complete revision." It was lost by forty-seven votes to eleven. In r 890, provision was made in the rules for calling a special general meeting, a very rare event in the long history of the Association, although one was convened a month after the Annual Meeting. A proposal by Mr. J. Courtenay Clarke that the Association should be reconstituted with three divisions and a central Asso~iation, to be known as the A.A.A., was 41