In the 16th century the great football match played annually at Chester was abolished in favour of a series of foot-races, which took place in the presence of the mayor. A list of the common sports of that time is contained in some verses by Randel Holme, a minstrel of the North country, and makes mention of throwing the sledge, jumping, “wrastling,” stool-ball (cricket), running, pitching the bar, shooting, playing loggets, “nine holes or ten pins,” “football by the shinnes,” leap-frog, morris, shove-groat, leaping the bonfire, stow-ball (golf), and many other outdoor and indoor sports, some of them now obsolete. Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan poets abound in allusions to sport, which formed an important feature in school life and at every fair. The Stuart kings were warm encouragers of sport, the Basilikon Doron of James I., written for his son, containing a recommendation to the young prince to practise “running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the caitch, or tennise, archerie, palle-malle, and such like other fair and pleasant field games.”
An extraordinary variety of sports has been popular in Great Britain with high and low for the past five centuries, no other country comparing with it in this respect. Nor have Ireland and Scotland lagged behind England in athletic prowess. Indeed, so far as history and legend record, Ireland boasts of by far the most ancient organized sports known, the Tailtin Games, or Lugnasad, traditionally established by Lugaid of the Long Arm, one of the gods of Dia and Ana, in honour of his foster-mother Tailti, some three thousand years ago. For many centuries these games, and others like them, were kept up in Ireland, and though the almost constant wars which harried the country finally destroyed their organization, yet the Irish have always been, and still are, a very important factor in British athletics, as well as in America and the colonies.
The Scottish people have, like the Irish, ever delighted in feats of strength and skill, especially the Celtic highlanders, the character of whose country and mode of life have, however, prevented organized athletics from attaining the same prominence as in England. Nevertheless, the celebrated Highland games held at Braemar, Bridge of Allan, Luss, Aboyne and other places have served to bring into prominence many athletes of the first class, although the records, on account of the roughness of the grounds, have not generally vied with those made farther south.
The Briton does not lose his love of sport upon leaving his native soil, and the development of athletics in the United States and the British colonies has kept step with that of the mother-land. Upon the continent of Europe sports have occupied a more or less prominent place in the life of the nations, but their development has been but an echo of that in Great Britain. A great advance, however, has been made since the institution of the modern Olympic games.
About the year 1812 the Royal Military College at Sandhurst inaugurated regular athletic sports, but the example was not followed until about 1840, when Rugby, Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury and the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich came to the front, the “Crick Run” at Rugby having been started in 1837. At the two great English universities there were no organized sports of any kind until 1850, when Exeter College, Oxford, held a meeting; this example has been followed, one after the other, by the other colleges of both institutions. The first contest between Oxford and Cambridge occurred at Oxford in 1864, the programme consisting of eight events, of which four were won by each side. The same year saw the first contest of the Civil Servants, still an annual event.
In 1866 the Amateur Athletic Club was formed in London for “gentlemen amateurs,” most of its members being old university men. Its first championship meeting, held in that year, was the beginning of a series afterwards continued to the present day by the Amateur Athletic Association, founded in 1880, which has jurisdiction over British athletic sports. The most important individual English athletic organization is the London Athletic Club, which antedated the Amateur Athletic Club, and whose meetings have always been the most important events except the championships.
In America a revival of interest in athletic sports took place about the year 1870. Ten years later was formed the National Association of Amateur Athletes of America, which, in 1888, became the Amateur Athletic Union. This body controls athletics throughout the United States, and is allied with the Canadian Amateur Athletic Association. It is supreme in matters of amateur status, records and licensing of meetings, and has control over the following branches of sport: basket-ball, billiards, boxing, fencing (in connexion with the Amateur Fencers’ League of America), gymnastics, hand-ball (fives), running, jumping, walking, weight-putting (hammer, shot, discus, weights), hurdle-racing, lacrosse, pole-vaulting, swimming, tugs-of-war and wrestling. The Amateur Athletic Union has eight sectional groups, and is allied with the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (founded 1876) and the Western Intercollegiate Association. The first American intercollegiate athletic meeting took place at Saratoga in 1873, only three universities competing, though the next year there were eight and in 1875 thirteen. Professional athletes in America are confined almost entirely to base-ball, boxing, bicycling, wrestling and physical training.
The Canadian athletic championships are held independently of the American. Annual championship meetings are also held in South Africa, New Zealand and the different states of Australia. For the Australasian championships New Zealand joins with Australia.
The organization of university sports in America differs from that at Oxford and Cambridge, where there is no official control on the part of the university authorities, and where a man is eligible to represent his college or university while in residence. In nearly all American universities and colleges athletic and other sports are under the general control of faculty committees, to which the undergraduate athletic committees are subordinate, and which have the power to forbid the participation of any student who has not attained a certain standard of scholarship. For some years prior to 1906 no student of an American university was allowed to represent his university in any sport for longer than four years. Early in that year, however, many of the most important institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Pennsylvania, entered upon a new agreement, that only students who have been in residence one year should play in ’varsity teams in any branch of athletics and that no student should play longer than three years. This, together with many other reformatory changes, was directly due to a widespread outcry against the growing roughness of play exhibited in American football, basket-ball, hockey and other sports, the too evident desire to win at all hazards, the extraordinary luxury of the training equipment, and the enormous gate-receipts of many of the large institutions—the Yale Athletic Association held a surplus of about $100,000 (£20,000) in December 1905, after deducting immense amounts for expenses. The new rule against the participation of freshmen in ’varsity sports was to discourage the practice of offering material advantages of different kinds to promising athletes, generally those at preparatory schools, to induce them to become students at certain universities.
At the present day athletic sports are usually understood to consist of those events recognized in the championship programmes of the different countries. Those in the competitions between Oxford and Cambridge are the 100 yards, 440 yards, 880 yards, 1-mile and 3-mile runs; 120 yards hurdle-race; high and long jumps; throwing the hammer; and putting the weight (shot). To the above list the English A.A.A. adds the 4-mile and 10-mile runs; the 2-mile and 7-mile walking races; the 2-mile steeplechase; and the pole-vault. The American intercollegiate programme is identical with that of the Oxford-Cambridge meeting, except that a 2-mile run takes the place of the 3-mile, and the pole-vault is added. The American A.A.U. programme includes the 100 yards, 220 yards, 440 yards, 880 yards, 1-mile and 5-mile runs; 120 yards high-hurdle race; 220 yards low-hurdle race; high and broad (long) jumps; throwing the hammer; throwing 56-℔ weight; putting 16-℔ shot; throwing the discus; and pole-vault. Of these the running contests are called “track athletics,” and the rest “field” events.