A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



ATHLETICS 



Northamptonshire has always been a foot- 

 racing centre, but has owed its position to the 

 professional rather than to the amateur. 

 There is at the County Cricket Ground at 

 Northampton a capital cinder track of rather 

 less than three laps to the mile, with a straight 

 sprint course, an excellent pavilion and stand 

 accommodation ; indeed, with the exception 

 of that at Cambridge, this is the only properly 

 equipped atheletic ground in the midland 

 counties. The Northampton ground has been 

 selected three times since 1892 for the 

 championship meetings by the Amateur Ath- 

 letic Association, and on each occasion the 

 gathering has been a pronounced success. 

 The A. A. A. championships were last held at 

 Northampton in 1903. The leading athletic 

 club of the county is the Northampton and 

 County Amateur Athletic Club, with its 

 headquarters at the Gymnasium in Abington 

 Street, Northampton. The club embraces 

 several branches of amateur sport, boxing, 

 cycling, and swimming, in addition to athletics 

 proper. Altogether there are over five hundred 

 members. It was founded about 1865, but 

 the earlier records were lost through fire in 

 1875. In 1903 the earl of Effingham was 

 elected president of the club. The open 

 meeting, including several county champion- 



ships, is held annually in August. Several 

 A. A. A. champions have been members of the 

 club. Perhaps next in importance to the 

 Northampton comes the Kettering Amateur 

 Cycling, Athletic, and Swimming Club with 

 upwards of one hundred members. The club 

 is handicapped by the want of a good ground. 

 The members however have done well in 

 cross-country events during the winter months. 

 There is, in Kettering, another club of fair 

 strength. The Town Harriers, but the mem- 

 bers are chiefly occupied with winter sport and 

 do not form such a prominent body as the 

 Kettering club. The Wellingborough Ath- 

 letic Club is a small body which annually holds 

 an athletic meeting, and the Northampton 

 Alpine Harriers, another minor organization, 

 completes the list of clubs in the county. 

 At Oundle, Market Harborough, Thrap- 

 ston, Woodford Halse, Finedon, and Welford 

 large and important athletic meetings are 

 held annually, but are simply arranged by 

 local committees for some charitable or 

 other object, and cannot be considered club 

 fixtures. Professional running matches and 

 handicaps are frequent all over the county 

 and never fail to draw crowds of spec- 

 tators whom the amateur meetings do not 

 attract. 



CRICKET 



Northamptonshire cricket has suffered from 

 a want of a thickly-populated town to support 

 it, but it has been fostered by many staunch 

 supporters, notably Earl Spencer, K.G., and 

 Sir Herewald Wake, who have been inde- 

 fatigable in their endeavours to develop the 

 game. The former, when Lord Althorp, 

 mav be said to have been one of the pioneers 

 of Northamptonshire cricket as at present es- 

 tablished, for the beautiful ground in Althorp 

 Park was famous long before the county 

 had any standing at all, and attracted to 

 the district the best of the touring clubs 

 from I Zingari downwards. In fact the 

 County Cricket Club probably took root 

 here, as the home team usually comprised 

 the best amateurs that Northampton and 

 its neighbourhood could produce, includ- 

 ing amongst many others such well-known 

 gentlemen and local cricketers as the late Mr. 

 H. O. Nethercote of hunting repute, the Rev. 

 W. Bury an old Cambridge blue, the present 

 Lord Henley, Capt. Landon, Major Hollis, 



Mr. C. C. Becke and Mr. W. Kingston, 

 eight of whose sons have figured continuously 

 and successively in the county eleven during 

 many years, and the eldest of whom was a 

 member of the famous Light Blue eleven for 

 1878. 



Here also the leading schools, factories, and 

 workshops were privileged to play on a per- 

 fect pitch and amidst delightful surroundings. 

 Such matches were an incentive to school- 

 boys and workmen to play, and it is im- 

 possible to estimate their value in the promo- 

 tion of cricket. The privilege is one which 

 exists to this day, although level pitches and 

 good grounds are now abundant enough in 

 the county town. Perhaps the earliest pro- 

 minent name in a true cricketing sense which 

 appears in the fortunes of the county is that 

 of the Rev. H. H. Gillett, late of Oxford 

 University, now rector of Woolsthorpe, 

 Lincolnshire. He was a batsman of con- 

 siderable repute both at Oxford and in this 

 county. 



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