SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



is one of the chief causes why athletics proper 

 do not flourish in this district. Indeed out- 

 side the London radius athletic clubs and 

 grounds are very few and far between. Hor- 

 ley up to a few years ago boasted a fairly 

 prosperous club and ground, but local in- 

 terest waned and the club is now defunct. 

 Chertsey and Epsom have harrier clubs and 

 annual athletic meetings, but the latter do 

 not aspire to anything beyond local support 

 both as regards spectators and competitors, 

 and foot-racing cannot be said to flourish in 

 either locality. Hersham, near Walton-on- 

 Thames, held a well-attended open athletic 

 sport fixture at Burvale ; in 1902 a club was 

 formed to encourage running, and its mem- 

 bership is rapidly increasing. Woking is 

 another new and recent addition to the list 

 of A. A. A. affiliated clubs, and its annual 

 Whit Monday Meeting is always a success. 

 At Mitcham, Ewell, Sutton, Leatherhead, 

 Carshalton and Beddington athletic sports 

 are held every year, the local football or cricket 

 club being responsible for the management ; 

 but with the exception of Leatherhead on 

 Easter Monday the various races and events 

 are confined to the district, and have little 

 bearing on the athletic history and cham- 

 pionships of the year. The same may now 

 be said of Dorking, although formerly the 

 fixture was well supported by some of the 

 best of the Metropolitan runners. 



Reigate, vdth a capital ground recently 

 laid out and a newly-formed harrier club 



appears likely to become in the near future 

 an important athletic centre. The club 

 holds annually a couple of most important 

 fixtures on its new enclosure, at one of which 

 the Mile Champion, A. Shrubb, made a 

 record which, but for a trifling informality, 

 would have been passed by the governing 

 body. Three of the running championships 

 of Surrey are decided at the annual Whit 

 Monday Meeting of the Guildford Athletic 

 Club held on their own ground in the centre 

 of the town. This is one of the best managed 

 and most popular fixtures in the county. The 

 neighbouring town of Godalming also used 

 to hold an annual athletic meeting until the 

 year 1893. 



Two other old established and rapidly im- 

 proving meetings are those of Chiddingfold 

 and Farnham. They are both admirably 

 managed and every year attract an increasing 

 number of entries from prominent athletes. 

 The athletic records of Surrey would not be 

 complete without reference to the fact that 

 for one or two seasons the National and South- 

 ern Counties Cross-Country Championships 

 were decided at Ockham, and that in 1902 

 and 1903 the National and the Southern 

 Cross-Country Championship executives 

 found in Lingfield racecourse the best and 

 most suitable ground for these severe tests of 

 pace and stamina. Having regard to its area 

 an exceptionally large number of athletic 

 meetings are held within the county of 

 Surrey. 



GOLF 



The county of Surrey is the cradle of Eng- 

 lish golf. The first regularly organized Golf 

 Club in the county, apart from the Royal 

 Blackheath Club, founded in 1608, dates 

 from the year 1866. This is the London 

 Scottish on Wimbledon Common. Its estab- 

 lishment was followed a short time after- 

 wards by the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club. 

 At that time these two influential clubs, and 

 one older institution, embraced the majority 

 of golfers in and around London. For the 

 most part the golfers of those early years were 

 exiled Scots who had elected to come on a 

 civilizing mission southwards, who had 

 brought their national game wdth them, and 

 who had chosen with magnanimous disin- 

 terestedness, to bear the self-imposed bur- 

 den of teaching their English brethren the 

 game. If their labours are to be measured 

 by the statistics of to-day their success in 

 Surrey must be pronounced unqualified, 

 for their example soon proved contagious. 



521 



The county began, after an interval of in- 

 different scrutiny, to appreciate at their true 

 value the virtues of the Royal and ancient 

 game. 



During a period of twenty years there were 

 only four golf clubs in Surrey — Blackheath, 

 the London Scottish, the Royal Wimbledon, 

 and Clapham Common. Those were the 

 years between 1866 and 1886; and outside 

 this area no golf was played under the aus- 

 pices of a regularly organized club. Follow- 

 ing the ancient precedent set in Scotland, 

 the golfers in the county chose the public 

 commons upon which to play their game. 

 But there was a great difference in the con- 

 ditions prevailing in Surrey and those in 

 Scotland. Golf was the national game of 

 Scotland; it had been played from time 

 immemorial on the commons, generally close 

 to the sea-shore. All classes of the people 

 understood the game, and they extended to the 

 players a wide and generous toleration in its 



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