Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

A.A.A. JUBILEE SOUVENIR human system is perfect-but taking it all in all, the good far outweighs the bad, and we have no reason to be ashamed of the standard of our amateurism. The Southern Committee has, of course, had far more duties than the detection and punishment of offenders against the laws of the A.A.A. Indeed, it has found it necessary to form many sub-committees to deal with certain features of its work. The points submitted to it have been multitudinous and multifarious. " Is a professional chess-player dis– qualified from competing under A.A.A. Laws?" was one question. " Is a billiard-marker a professional athlete?" another. Some of the problems propounded proved as difficult of solving with an absolute yea or nay as the well-known question addressed to a Parliamentary candidate : " Have you left off beating your wife ? " In such circum– stances, the Chairman has tactfully disposed of the matter with the re– mark, " Let us wait until an actual case arises." Reference has been made to the attendance of four at the first meeting of the Southern Committee. It was later provided that the Committee should consist of ten, elected at the Annual General Meeting of the A.A.A., and delegates from certain privileged ("entrenched" their critics called them) clubs. Several attempts were made to force a revision of the constitution, but it was not until 191 I that a change in the Laws brought into being a Committee of twenty members elected at the Annual Meeting of Southern Clubs. With those twenty there now sit one or two representatives (according to its strength) of each affiliated county Association, one each from Oxford U.A.C. and Cambridge U.A.C., and two each from the Navy, Army, Air Force and Territorial Force. As the Southern Vice-Presidents and the officers of the A.A.A. are also eligible to be present, a full attendance has more the aspect of a public meeting than a committee meeting. Such a large and representative body has ensured an adequate presentation of the views of Southern Clubs and athletes. Nevertheless, there was no opposition at the last A.A.A. General Meeting, when a new Law was passed granting to the Annual Meeting of Southern Clubs the exercise of those powers which the Association's Laws delegate to the Southern Committee. So the Clubs of the South, in general meeting assembled, may now enact regulations, within the Laws and Rules of the A.A.A., for the conduct of the sport within their own particular area. How far does the sports meeting of to-day differ from that of forty-five or fifty years ago? Glancing at a programme of a meeting held by a well-known London club in the 'eighties one finds it made up of the following events: Half-mile members' challenge cup race, open handi– caps at roo yards, 300 yards and one mile, with a cycle handicap, members' handicaps at a quarter-mile and two miles, with a quarter-mile invitation scratch race. Nothing strange or eventful there, you say. But what about the scratch race? Such an event was at one time a weekly item in London. Nowadays, an athlete must almost inevitably await the County, 76