A HISTORY OF KENT 



' hoops ' of that club, as does F. H. Hulford, 

 who has won the 4 miles A.A.A. championship. 

 The quarter-mile champion of England in 

 1903, Chas. McLachlan, wore the colours of 

 the Heme HiU contingent, which is so well 

 looked after by Mr. Chas. Otway (Camber- 

 well), their honorary secretary. The Black- 

 heath Harriers have boasted a capital half- 

 miler in B. J. Blunden, who has held English 

 honours at that distance ; and A. Healey, 

 a fellow member, who ran second in the 

 hurdle race at Athens, has won several 

 Northern Counties championships by reason 

 of his birth qualification. 



Another club, the Kent A.C., brought 

 into prominence A. Aldridge, a stayer who 

 won Southern, National, and International 

 honours on the flat and across country, though 

 he always had to play second fiddle, when 

 they met, to the Sussex wonder, Alfred Shrubb. 

 In the South-of-the-Thames Cross-Country 

 championships Kentish clubs always figure 

 prominently, and they won the last of the 

 South-of-the-Thames races (1907) with a 

 team of young and promising stayers. 



Another club, the Cambridge Harriers, 

 which to all intents and purposes is a 

 London institution, belies its name so far as 

 its membership is concerned, for most of its 

 members are drawn from the county of Kent. 

 The club was established in 1890. 



Other athletic clubs within the county 

 which hold their meetings under the laws 

 of the Amateur Athletic Association are the 

 Erith Harriers ; Swanley CM. and A.C. ; 

 Cray Valley CM. and A.C ; Sittingbourne 

 C.C ; Dover CC ; Bexley W.M.C ; and 

 Foots Cray C.C. 



In addition to the sports meetings pro- 



moted by these clubs, numerous gatherings 

 are held annually, or at irregular intervals, 

 in various parts of the county. Some are 

 unregistered meetings mainly supported by , 

 amateur athletes, while others are avowedly 

 of the professional order. Between these 

 two kinds of meetings there is in reality a far 

 greater difference than is recognized by the 

 ruling body of the sport. But that Associa- 

 tion tars both with the same brush and 

 looks upon the unregistered meeting as 

 disdainfully as it considers the purely pro- 

 fessional undertaking. A hard and fast line 

 must, however, be drawn somewhere, and 

 severe as the regulations of the A.A.A. may 

 appear to be in some instances, there is no 

 doubt that their action is entirely in accord- 

 ance with the best interests of those amateurs 

 who are loyal to the provisioHS made by the 

 laws of the predominant body. 



Canterbury, Gravesend A.C, Northfleet 

 Institute, CHffe-at-Hoo, Rainham, Ramsgate, 

 Birchington-on-Sea, Maidstone, Kent County 

 Constabulary, Ashford United, Smeeth, Char- 

 ing, Headcorn, High Halden, Chatham, 

 Sittingbourne, Bexley Heath, and Orpington 

 all hold sports every year — some of them 

 in connexion with local flower shows — but 

 it is impossible to say which of these are 

 registered, unregistered or professional meet- 

 ings, even if it were advisable to state the fact. 



For a long time past, and indeed through- 

 out the whole of its athletic career, although 

 perhaps never more so than at the present 

 time, Kent has been an unsettled county in 

 the matter of its athletic principles, and the 

 meeting that is registered to-day is more than 

 likely to be unregistered, or even admittedly 

 professional, to-morrow. 



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