SPORT 



the cost of the undertaking, including the 

 payment of permit fees and the employment 

 of official handicappers, far greater than 

 they could bear, and they have long since 

 reverted to the old order of things. The 

 tendency to follow this example still exists. 

 It seems likely that in the near future 

 many more clubs will adopt the unregistered 

 principle, while there appears to be little 

 likelihood of new clubs coming forward to 

 fill the gaps caused by these secessions from 

 the ranks of pure amateurism. One cannot 

 but regret this state of affairs, for strictly 

 amateur athletics should everywhere form 

 a part of the curriculum of the youth of 

 England. 



Other meetings of the long ago in the 

 county of Kent, though still promoted under 

 the laws of the Amateur Athletic Association, 

 have either become less exclusive as regards 

 the rules which govern them, or have gradu- 

 ally drifted into the hands of men with 

 good ideas of sport but possessed of broader 

 minds on the subject of amateurism and 

 more democratic in their views. Belong- 

 ing to this latter class of sports are those 

 held at Belvedere, which meeting may be 

 regarded as the successor to the old Erith 

 and Belvedere fixture. No more popular 

 gathering than this last within easy reach 

 of London ever existed. In its palmy 

 days in the early 'eighties it was loyally 

 supported by the members of the London 

 Athletic Club and similar bodies ; but the 

 character of the meeting has changed consider- 

 ably since then, although it is still popular. 



At about the same period there flourished 

 meetings at Gravesend, at which athletes of 

 good class were in the habit of competing. 

 Prominent among the competitors of that day 

 was E. C. Carter, a champion cross-country 

 runner. He afterwards went to America, 

 where he still remains, and in that country 

 has won several championships and estab- 

 lished records. At the old North Kent 

 sports his was one of the most familiar figures, 

 and on one occasion at that meeting he carried 

 off the two miles open handicap in very fast 

 time. At the same sports J. M. Cowie, the 

 champion sprinter of the day, was credited 

 with covering the lOO yards in a shade better 

 than ten seconds. Whether he actually 

 did so is open to some doubt, but the proba- 

 bility is that he achieved the record, for he 

 was a good man and the course was a little 

 downhill. At any rate his performance was 

 a remarkable one, although it could not be 

 officially recognized. 



Shoreham sports, which at one time 

 belonged to the unregistered category, came 



within the fold of the Amateur Athletic 

 Association a few years ago, and there seems 

 to be every prospect of the Shoreham meeting 

 one day taking a high position in Kent athletics. 

 Dr. Desprez, one of the local officers of the 

 A.A.A., is a resident in the district, and as 

 becomes an old athlete, naturally interests 

 himself greatly in the sport. 



At Tunbridge Wells, a town ever associ- 

 ated with good men and true in nearly 

 every branch of sport, a couple of sports 

 meetings are held every year, the one by 

 the Tonbridge Invicta Harriers, and the other 

 by the Tunbridge Wells St. John's CM. 

 and A.C. Of the latter body Mr. H. 

 Saville, of Newerman Road, Tunbridge 

 Wells, is the honorary secretary. The old 

 Tunbridge Wells Harriers, winners for a 

 number of years of the South of the Thames 

 inter-club race, are no longer in existence, 

 although a number of their members — 

 prominent among whom is A. Ovenden, 

 of the London Athletic Club — are still to 

 be met with, principally in the capacity of 

 officials, at various athletic meetings both 

 in and out of London. 



Real athletics never flourished to any con- 

 siderable extent in Kent, albeit as the county 

 in which some important cycling contests 

 have been decided under the auspices of the 

 National Cyclists' Union, it has been rather 

 famous in the past. To find anything of 

 downright historical interest in Kentish 

 field sports, apart from the fact that good 

 men from other districts came to the county 

 meetings, one has to come to the very modern 

 times of 1887 to note that a Lewisham resi- 

 dent (but a Birmingham born man), J. H. 

 Adams, carried off the 50 miles Ordinary 

 Bicycle Championship of the N.C.U. at 

 Birmingham. F. J. Osmond, S. F. Edge, 

 and P. F. Wood, old cycle and tricycle cham- 

 pions, had their Kentish club and residential 

 connexions, and the Crystal Palace itself 

 has long been a home ' of cycle-racing. In 

 1892 the Heme Hill track was chosen for the 

 N.C.U.'s chief races, and the Catford ground 

 was used in 1896. A winner of a N.C.U. 

 medal for the tandem championship in 1898 

 was F. Burnand of Catford, who partnered 

 E. J. Callingham, a Surrey resident. 



The Blackheath Harriers and Heme Hill 

 Harriers are chiefly Kentish men, and while 

 the former is rather an exclusive society, 

 the latter can be said to have turned out 

 some very useful runners within the past 

 decade. For instance, the 15 miles amateur 

 record holder, Fred J. Appleby, is a member 

 of the H.H.H., and the ex-Irish mile and 

 four miles champion, J. N. Deakin, bears the 



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