'A Monstre Cycling Social' - Blackheath 1886

Continuing my research on SE London sporting history, I came across this report of  'A Monstre Cycling Social'  held at the Green Man Hotel in December 1886. The Green Man stood at the top of Blackheath Hill (left hand side if you are going up it) for three hundred years before being demolished in 1970. It played an important social and cultural role, being at various times the HQ of England's oldest golf club (Royal Blackheath) and a significant folk, jazz and R&B in the 1960s (Paul Simon and Manfred Mann among the performers).

Green Man in 1880s - image from pubmywiki

There are a few interesting points to note about this 'large attendance of cyclists and their friends'. The lists of cycling clubs represented gives an idea of the popularity of the sport in this part of London at this early point in its history. South London clubs mentioned include New Cross, Argus (who were based in Deptford), Brockley, Dulwich, Brixton Ramblers, Norwood Safety, Peckham Rovers, Pelham (Sydenham), Clapham Park, Croydon, Anerley etc. 

Present too were a few running clubs - at this period there was quite an overlap between the two. One such club was Blackheath Harriers (today Blackheath & Bromley Harriers AC), also based at the Green Man, which had moved to the area in 1878 due to urbanisation around its former Peckham home (they had previously been known as Peckham Hare and Hounds, formed in 1869). Other running clubs mentioned including South London Harriers, Brockley Harriers and Lewisham Hare and Hounds. 

As discussed in a previous post here, Catford CC itself had only been founded in April 1886, and grew out of Lewisham Hare and Hounds. The Cycling Club is still going today, and Lewisham Hare and Hounds became part of Kent Athletic Club, founded in 1898 and still running hard at Ladywell track.

Kentish Mercury - Friday 10 December 1886

 Another interesting feature of this report is that it mentions that the event included a 'Mile Open' race on a 'Home trainer' bike. I had no idea that stationary indoor bicycle trainers existed at this point, but seemingly designs based on riding on rollers or with one wheel were already being marketed. Would be interested if anybody had come across an earlier example of a competitive use of a home trainer/exercise back than this one from 1886.

The following example made by Longford Wire Iron and Steel Co of Warrington dates to 1897:

image sourced from Grace's Guide

Phyllis Green: 1920s Peckham athlete (plus some Peckham Rye running history)

I did Peckham Rye parkrun again at the weekend, with about  around 250 people doing a 5k in an area that  can claim to be one of the birth places of modern English athletics. Some of the runners were from established local running clubs like Kent AC or Dulwich Runners, some from informal local groups like Runhead AC (who run every Tuesday from the Beer Shop in Nunhead), many just enjoying being part of the parkrun crew. But it is two of the oldest established London clubs, no longer based in the area,  who trace their origins back to Peckham Rye:

'South London Harriers was formed on 27th December, 1871 at a meeting in the Vivian Hotel, at 34 Philip Road (now known as Philip Walk), Peckham Rye, SE15. There was a similar Club close by in Peckham Rye, which was founded at "The King's Arms", as Peckham Hare & Hounds in October 1869, before soon changing its name to Peckham Amateur Athletic Club (PAAC). It later moved to "The Rye House", and in July 1878 moved from the Peckham Rye area to become the Blackheath Harriers' (SLH: A Brief History)

Both clubs moved away from Peckham as it became more urbanised, but are still going strong elsewhere. SLH  has its  clubhouse in Coulsdon, while Blackheath & Bromley Harriers AC is  based at the Norman Road track in Bromley (and with a clubhouse in Hayes).

A notable Peckham athlete was a pioneer women's jumper and the first to clear five feet in the high jump. Phyllis Green (1908-99) was born at 12 Rye Lane where her father Henry Green managed the undertakers. He was a member of Peckham Harriers so no doubt encouraged his daughter who as a 17 year old at Peckham High School for Girls 'set her first world best of 1.51 metres at London's Stamford Bridge in June 1925, and equalled that mark in Brussels a month later. She raised it by half an inch when winning the WAAA title at Stamford Bridge on 11 July 1925, becoming the first woman to clear 5 feet (1.52 metres).  At another London venue, Chiswick, she improved her world best to 1.55 metres (5 ft 1 in) in 1926 and her highest ever jump was 1.58 metres (5 ft 2¼ in) at the 1927 WAAA championships off a grass take-off at Reading’ – the end of a short but successful competitive career . She also held the British long jump record for a while and her personal best of 5.52 metres in 1927 was only 5 cm short of the then world record.  She told a reporter in 1925 that ‘I have always jumped from the time I learned to walk…'I never went round an obstacle—I always jumped over it.' (source:  Mel Watman, Women athletes between the world wars, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2012)

These were the early days of women’s athletics - the Women’s Amateur Athletics Association was only founded in 1922, and Phyllis Green belonged to the London Olympiades Athletics Club, the first women’s club, set up in 1921 in a period when many running clubs only admitted male members.

The only picture I have found of Phyllis Green is an etching by Percy Smith (1882-1948), held in the collection of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

(see Running Past for details of the first WAAA championships, held at Downham in 1923)

Silence at Surrey League

I ran yesterday in the Surrey League Cross Country men's Division One at Farthing Downs outside of Coulsdon (home to South London Harriers). Before the race started there was a minute's silence to remember Lucy Pygott and Stacey Burrows, the two young runners killed this week while training with Aldershot Farnham and District AC. The driver of the car that killed them has been arrested.

Similar commemorations were held at races around the country yesterday, with many runners also wearing black ribbons. Although many of the runners would not have personally known 17-year-old Lucy and 16-year-old Stacey (left and right below), they were promising young runners who had already taken part in some of the big events of English athletics such as the national cross country championships at Castle Donington this year and the southern and national road relays.

The race started as soon as the silence finished, with 193 runners heading off on the two lap course. Kent AC (my club) won the race, regaining their place at the top of the league.  I was way towards the back in my first proper run since falling a couple of weeks ago, but did finish quicker than last time I ran that course a couple of years ago.

Athletics in Beckenham, 1881

The last race of this year's Assembly League will be hosted as usual by Beckenham Running Club this week. While the 5k road race takes place on local streets, runners meet up and change at the cricket club ground on Foxgrove Road where the club is based, and most of the runners do a circuit or two of the cricket ground to warm up before racing.

Beckenham Cricket Club has been based at Foxgrove Road since 1867, and has been associated with other sports too since the early days. It gave birth to a tennis club in 1879, and judging by the following report, athletics was also part of its early activities.

 

In June 1881, Beckenham Cricket Club held its 'annual athletic meeting',  an event that featured both running and cycling races, as well as  entertainment from 'The band of the 11th Hussars (Prince Albert's Own'). The running races ranged from the 'hundred yards' to the Mile.

The 120 Yard Hurdles featured competitors from clubs including Beckenham Cricket Club, Private Banks Cricket Club, London Athletic Club, Arundel Athletic Club and Crystal Palace School of Engineering. Interesting that while clubs dedicated to particular sports existed by this time, the exclusive specialisation of athletes was not as developed as it later became - as is shown by a cricket club organising a running and cycling event, with cricket, football, running and cycling club members taking part.

The Mile Race (Open) featured 22 runners, with T. Shore of London Athletic Club acting as the Handicapper. Races were routinely handicapped in this period, with runners being given a head start according to their form and ability.  So the winner, J.E. Dixon (Spartan Harriers), had a 130 yard start while H.B. Burrows, South London Harriers was given a 50 yard start. It was 'A well contested-race, though the  winner led throughout, and won by ten yards'. Third placed H.D. Thomas (Blackheath Harriers) finished three  yards behind 2nd place, having  started at scratch (i.e with no head start). The winning time was given as 'four minutes, 24 and one-fifth seconds'.

The Challenge Cup 'was presented by His Highness the late Rajah of  Kolapore' to 'Mr A M Inglis, who had gained the highest number of marks in the club events', including winning the half-mile and the high jump. Other prizes were awarded by Lady Inglis (his mother) - Julia, Lady Inglis (born Julia Thesiger), lived in Beckenham after returning from India and wrote a book about her experiences in the Siege of Lucknow. Her son Alfred later played cricket for MCC and, on one occasion, Kent.

The cycling race included cyclists from clubs including Brixton Ramblers, LAC, Dewsbury BC, Crichton BC, London BC and Wanderers BC (in that period it seems that clubs were generally known as Bicycling Clubs - hence BC- rather than Cycling Clubs as they soon became known).

It was announced by Mr Percy Bicknell at the end that the rumour that  the club was about to give up the ground was untrue - in fact 'the ground had been secured for a period of 10 years'. Thanks to the efforts of these Victorian sporting pioneers, cricketers, footballers, tennis players, runners and others are still using these facilities more than a century later.

Source: The Beckenham Journal, 1st July 1881

(there are bound copies of this journal in Bromley reference library)

'These forms who hasten by' - ghosts and runners on the Pilgrims Way (1923)

The Pilgrims Way

Along the Pilgrims' way.

The yew trees sigh and sway,

They stand a lasting line,

On ancient days a sign.

The monk and minstrel gay

With prayer and roundelay;

The pedlar with his load;

They took the Pilgrims' road

And when the sun is low,

They sometimes seem to go

Along the same old track,

By yew trees, gnarled and black.

When folks say what they've seen,

Well, WE know what they mean;

These forms who hasten by,

Are really you and I!

(RMH, South London Harriers Gazette, November 1923)

Pilgrims Way,  Kent, 1950 - Bill Brandt

The Pilgrims Way is a route between Winchester and Canterbury, at least part of which follows ancient trackways on the North Downs even if its name and conception as a single continuous route probably goes back no further than the 1870s. It is popular with walkers and runners - including those taking part in  The Pilgrims Challenge 66 mile ultra marathon in the last couple of years.

The notion of following in the footsteps of ancient pilgrims is an evocative one, and in a certain light quite haunting. In the 1920s, when this poem was written, there was upsurge of interest in both the great outdoors and in ghosts. Robert Macfarlane notes that in this period 'people, traumatized by the war, took to the paths in search of ghosts  - setting out on the tracks of the lost and left-behind. Old paths became mediums in two senses: means of communion as well as means of motion. The convivial pilgrimages described by Chaucer became tinged with a morbid historicism: spectres stepped from the verge or hedge, offering brief address' (The Old Ways: a journey on foot, 2012).

This would seem to apply to this poem, which I found in an old South London Harriers newsletter, but  I like the twist  - that what others see as ghosts may in fact be runners hastening by.

I wonder who 'RMH' was?

[update - South London Harriers have identified an R.M. Harrison who ran for the club in this period, so he is possibly the poet]

Hamish Fulton's The Pilgrims Way features in the current 'Conceptual Art in Britain' exhibition at Tate Britain gallery in London. In  April 1971, Fulton conceived of  'A 165 mile walk' on 'Ancient paths forming a route between Winchester and Canterbury' as an art work leaving no trace other than this photograph of  'A hollow lane on the North Downs'.

More running related literature:

Jack Kerouac running down a mountain

'You just had to run' - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Morrissey - List of the Lost

Burns Night Running Thoughts

Running in the Railway Children

A Midsummer Night's Running

Running to Paradise - W B Yeats

The Sky of a Saturday Morning - John Updike

The Road is a Strange Country - Rebecca Solnit

The Runner - W H Auden

Once a Runner - John L Parker jr

Louisa May Alcott - 'A Joy to Run'

Streatham Common Cross Country

The third of this season's 2XU Surrey Cross Country League Men's Division One fixtures took place on Streatham Common on 10 January, with 177 runners from the nine competing clubs completing the (approximately) five mile race.

photo by Rayond O'Donoghue

Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers) finished first, followed by Chris Greenwood (Kent Athletic Club) and Ralph Street (Ranelagh Harriers). But in the team results, based on scores of first ten finishers for each club, Kent AC were victorious ahead of South London Harriers and Herne Hill Harriers. Kent now have a strong lead in the League and have a good chance of winning the title for the third year in a row with one race remaining, at Richmond Park on 7th February.

I was one of 27 in the Kent vest, finishing well behind the scorers on a deceptively challenging course. I guess I associate Streatham Common with leisurely walks and summer festivals, but running three times around it in gradually deepening mud was another story. The course started with a charge down hill and around the big open space on the west side of the common, coming back up the edge of that then plunging down a slope again before climbing through the woods.  There was no real flat section.

Streatham Common cross country course (approximate, drawn by me from memory)

By the end of it I could have done with some of the healing waters of Streatham Spa's mineral springs that attracted people to the common in their thousands in the early 18th century. Sadly they are no more. The common itself was once used by local people as a place to gather wood and graze animals, and like many such places was the scene of an ongoing conflict with landowners who wanted to enclose the common land (see Down with the Fences: Battles For the Commons In South London) - in 1794 'six men dressed in black' demolished an enclosure fenced off by the Lord of the Manor. A century later the common was secured for public access when it was purchased for use as a public open space under the powers of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878. 

There's a long history of running in the area, as shown by this newspaper cutting from October 1880:

South London Harriers annual Ten Mile Championship and Mr J Gibbs' Challenge Cup
from the Greyhound, Streatham Common, won by G.E. Liddiard, followed by H. Burrows
(the Greyhound pub, originally a coaching inn on London-Brighton road, is still there)

See previously:

Farthing Down Surrey League Cross Country, October 2014

South of the Thames Cross Country, Wimbledon Common, November 2014

Friday Photos (15): Magic Lantern slides of London running, 1909

Before the cinema there was the magic lantern show, featuring the public projection of slides.  Lucerna is an archive of  magic lantern images, including some interesting early 20th century London running shots from Walter Tyler Ltd., based in Waterloo Road

This first one is of the start of a 10 mile Amateur Athletics Association race at Stamford Bridge on 17 April 1909:

'Poly. Sports, Stamford Bridge - Yeatman winner of 440 yards race':

According to a report in the Daily Mail, 15 May1909, 'In an international contest at Stamford Bridge the Polytechnic Club beat the Stade Francais by three points to one' with 'J.R. Yeatman (Polytechnic)' winning the quarter-mile in a time 52.4 seconds.

Final one, from April 1909 is entitled 'South London Harriers finish of 100 yards final, Connolly (no.25) wins'.

Previously in Friday photo series:

New York High School Runners 1970s

Lilian Board, 1948-1970
Running in Tel Aviv 1942
Alan Turing the Runner

Marilyn Monroe the Runner
Tom Longboat, Canadian First Nations Marathon Runner
Runners in Space: an image from Munich 1972 on NASA's Voyager spacecraft

Jim Peters collapses in Vancouver 1954

Anita Neil - Britain's first female Black Olympian?

Running in the Streets of New Cross 1953

Running tracks from space

Running with Madonna

Ron Hill

1930s photos from Margate (Kent) and White City (London)

First World War: Remembering the Runners who Died

Last weekend my club's long Sunday run took us through the Greenwich foot tunnel round the Isle of Dogs and on to the Tower of London where we paused to view Paul Cummins and Tom Piper's installation 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' - 888,246 ceramic poppies filling the Tower’s moat to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.

The installation has been incredibly popular, and also prompted some healthy debate. Maybe it doesn't show the full horror of the carnage - what could? - and it can be a fine line between remembrance of the dead and glorifying war and militarism.  But the main sense conveyed at the Tower of London is the sheer scale of the loss with each of the poppies representing a life cut short (and even the 888,246 British and Colonial military deaths make up only part of the 16 million dead on all sides).  I suspect that most looking at it would see this simply as a terrible waste which they hope will never be repeated - though sadly people are still dying in wars in too many places.

The impact of the First World War is really brought home when you look at war memorials with their long lists of names and reflect on what they mean. They show how in any community, workplace or social group almost everybody would have been personally affected by the deaths of friends and relatives. Athletics clubs were no exception and thousands of runners were killed or injured. At the South London Harriers club house in Coulsdon for cross country last month, I noticed a memorial plaque listing 40 members of the club who died in the First World War. 

'in glorious memory of the South London Harriers who gave their lives in the Great War 1914-1919'

Lewisham War Memorials, which lists many memorials in my local area, also records that there is a plaque in Catford  for the 'Private Banks Cricket and Athletic Club' Roll of Honour 1914-1918. This is believed to commemorate 53 members of the sports club linked to the financial institutions which owned and used the sports ground on Canadian Avenue, SE6.

The 'Private Banks Cricket and Athletic Club' memorial
in Catford, South East London

Forward to Farthing Downs: start of the Surrey Cross-Country League

As discussed here before, cross-country is where it all began as far as modern organised athletics is concerned, with many of today's running clubs starting out in the 19th century to chase across fields in 'hare and hounds' races.

With the conditions now beginning to get suitably cold and wet, the English cross-country season got underway again last week - and I ran my first organised cross country race since leaving school.  Over the summer I joined my local Kent Athletic Club (based in Lewisham), and I was one of 27 wearing the blue vest of Kent - and  one of 176 runners in total -  in the opening men's match of the 2014-15 2XU Surrey Cross-Country League at Farthing Downs in Coulsdon.

Entrance to the South London Harriers HQ in Brighton Road, Coulsdon

 The race was hosted by South London Harriers, who have been based in the area and running over Farthing Downs since at least 1913 (their origins go back further to a pub in Peckham Rye in 1871, but that's another story). The Surrey Cross-Country League is slightly less venerable, but is still older than me, having started in 1962. The top flight of the event, Division One,  was dominated by two teams in the ten years between 2001 and 2011, with Herne Hill Harriers winning six times and Thames Hare and Hounds winning four times. But in the last two years, it has been won by Kent AC following a rapid progression from the 4th to 1st division after the club joined the league in 2007-8.

The animals of Farthing Downs

Coulsdon is within the London Borough of Croydon, but the area is as proper countryside as you can find within the M25. Yes cows had to be moved out of the way before the race could start. When you see the word 'Downs' you know it really means 'Ups' and the 5.4 mile course (over two laps) started with a long uphill grassland stretch before descending through woodland on a path with enough stones and tree roots to stop the mind from wandering.

The route

The race was won by Jon Pepper, running for Ranelagh Harriers, followed by Kent AC's John Gilbert and Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers).  The team competition was won by Kent though, who took five of the top 13 positions. Team points are calculated on the basis of the top ten finishers for each club - the winner gets 1 point, 2nd place two points etc. with the team with the lowest number of points across its first ten finishers being the winner overall. Kent are definitely now the team everyone wants to beat, so plenty to run for in the remaining three matches at Lloyd Park, Streatham Common and Richmond Park (full results here)

John Gilbert (Kent AC) and Paskar Owor (Belgrave Harriers, and a former Olympic athlete for Uganda)
- photo from Surrey Cross-Country League facebook page

Going straight into a highly competitive Division One match was daunting for me, and I can't say I contributed to the outcome. But I did achieve my modest race goals of 1. not falling over; 2. not getting lapped; 3. not walking; and 4. not coming last. I strongly recommend you try and run in a cross-country race over autumn/winter if you get the chance, I certainly intend to do some more.

The match was preceded by the Young Athletes race (under-17s), won by Kent's Alex Yee. In fact it's been a good couple of weeks for Kent AC runners, the next day the club's Amy Clements won the women's race in the Royal Parks Half Marathon, while the weekend before Cath Stibbs won the women's race at the Chester Marathon. Kent's women's team also made their debut in the Surrey Cross-Country League  'Senior Ladies' Division 2.

After the race runners retired to the South London Harriers clubhouse bar, a place steeped in running history and lore with  vintage photos, medals and indeed its very own blue plaque outside.

Plaque outside the SLH HQ commemorating Gordon Pirie (1931-1991).
5000m silver medallist at 1956 Melbourne Olympics

Jonny Muir has also written about this race:

'this is no normal race. This is among the best racing amateur athletics can offer. I once ran a race called Hellrunner on an army camp in Hampshire. It is part of a breed of modern races that are pitched as masochistic and ‘tough’. The ground was frozen. The hills were modest. We waded through the Bog of Doom, a contrived trench of neck-deep water. It was cold, but provides the runner with a rest – a convenient break from what you came here to do. I finish fifth. They give you what is called a ‘survivor’s medal’ if you get round. Hellrunner? I have run in hell. It’s a place near Bourton-on-the-Water. It is Richmond Park when you are in 76th place a week after winning a marathon. It is the second lap of Farthing Downs'.

See also on South London club running:

Assembly League Finale in Beckenham (Sept 2014)

Running History (7): Cross-Country Running: 'sport of the masses' (1898)

Extracts from an article on  'CROSS-COUNTRY RUNNING' by R.R. Conway, published in 'The Badminton magazine of sports and pastimes', May 1898. Interesting 'classes' versus 'masses' angle in opening paragraph - assume by 'classes' the author must mean the 'respectable/better' classes.

'Cross-country  running is essentially the sport of the masses. The classes either pass it contemptuously by on the other side, or judge its votaries by the attenuated and lightly clad specimens of humanity who may be seen scampering round suburban roads in the gathering darkness of a winter Saturday afternoon. But we cannot help regarding it as a most important branch of athletics. Nearly all our best distance runners train regularly across country in the off season, and while our sprinters go down before the flying Americans, and our jumpers are outdone by the nimble Gael,  we can still claim an undisputed supremacy at the longer distances, and it is across country that the majority of such contests are decided.

A late prominent paper-chaser, at Cambridge, has rather happily described the sport as ‘a man
running as nature made him', for the description is just. Nowhere will you see such absolutely natural style (much of it I regret to say bad) as at the end of a long and punishing cross-country race. In many cases it is simply a man's own pluck and strength that carry him home. and it is only in very exceptional cases that we see a pure stylist shine ‘over grass and plough.’ But of this more anon.

The origin of the sport is, of course, to be traced to the old game of Hare and Hounds, more particularly as followed at Rugby... Before the days of universal football and golf there was very little for a man who had not means for hunting and shooting to do during the winter, and just thirty years ago the first  cross-country club sprang into being. Mr. Walter Rye, the father of paper-chasers, aided by a few kindred spirits, formed the Thames Hare and Hounds Club, which still lives and flourishes... The Thames certainly possess the most genuine and sporting course near London, and the finish over Wimbledon Common cannot be surpassed...

Next in order of seniority come the Blackheath Harriers, who sprang into being in 1869, under the title of the Peckham Amateurs...  The other metropolitan club which calls for special notice is the South London Harriers, both on account of its age and its record. The S. L. H. preserves its youth in a wonderful manner, and encounters its friends from Blackheath in every imaginable sport. It must not be forgotten that the big cross-country clubs do great service to the cause of athletics generally, and the sports held under their direction rank among the biggest events of the year... The race par excellence of the year in the eyes of all metropolitan athletes is the 'Southern Counties’ at present decided over a terribly stiff course round the Watkin Tower at Wembley...

When we consider the sport itself, the reason of its popularity, especially in the metropolitan district, is not hard to find. The cost is trifling, the outfit of the simplest, and it can be pursued at an hour which would render any other outdoor sports impossible. It is difficult to overestimate such advantages to the average Londoner who cannot call his time his own. There is no more delightful sensation than that of a good stretch over a sporting course,  when wind and limb alike are in good condition, and one can stride out right through from end to end. Much senseless rubbish has been talked about the dangers of cross-country running; but these are incurred only by the foolish. In the first place, let no one make the attempt who is not absolutely sound. A collapse which, on the running-path within reach of the friendly pavilion, is trifling, becomes a very different matter five miles from anywhere, in a strange country, and with the nearest man's back fast vanishing through the gloom. Never shall I forget the unpleasant sensation of hunting for a lost Blackheathman in the November blizzard of 1893, when every turnip seemed to take the shape of a senseless corpse! The gentleman in question still lives, however, and blesses the name of the eminent physiologist against whose hospitable door he stumbled. Secondly, I must strongly advise all beginners to wear jerseys and shorts of sufficient thickness. Silk and gauze, which is all very well in the summer, gives very scant protection when the temperature nears the twenties, and the slight increase of weight is amply compensated by the security from chill and cramp. A great safeguard. too, comes from the use of woollen gloves and mittens protecting the wrist and forearm. These should be always worn on a really cold day.

The only proper shoes are those made for the purpose by the leading makers. They should be provided with a broad heel-strap, very low heels, and a steel plate protecting the foot from the jar of a spiked sole on a hard road. The one thing to do is to pay a good price to a good maker, and that will be found the truest economy.

The best training for cross-country running consists of lots of walking, steady work over the most varied country to be found, and once a week a good fast spin on the cinder path. This is absolutely necessary to a team that means to shine in a punishing race; practice on the path gives just the right amount of dash and finish to carry one home in the last mile. During the last fortnight of training once a week across country is all that should be attempted.

As regards style, men run well across country in all shapes and aim. While in a race on the track between picked men one general principle seems to inspire them all, in the ‘illegitimate sport’ the case is very different. The reason is to be found in the varying nature of the ground covered. While A rejoices in the strength which carries him through the mud, and revels in the most sticky and holding plough, B is a natural stylist, a
pretty jumper. and a flyer over the portions of grass and road which are beneficently placed in his way; thanks, however, to  the variety of a representative course very few seconds will separate the rivals in ten miles'.

Previously in this series:

- 'The Evil of Athletics' (1868) 
- Advice to Runners from 1895
- Gentleman Amateurs vs. Tradesmen at Crystal Palace 1872
- The Women's 800m, 1928 and Today
- A London Foot-Match in 1736
- Hare and Hounds 1869