One of the most remarkable features about modern English athletic life is the capacity of the athlete for self-government. As soon as any game or sport becomes popular in any district, or throughout the country, clubs are formed; the clubs conglomerate into district associations; and the latter finally become gathered together into a national governing body. All these bodies, from the smallest club to the largest association, are the outcome of voluntary effort; they are worked, as a rule, in a sensible and businesslike manner, and the officers, in almost every case, are unpaid. Football, cricket, cycling, athletics, paper-chasing, have all their governing bodies; and at a week's notice the best team at any sport can be picked from the whole country, or the popular opinion as to any change or innovation in the sport ascertained. All this discipline and organisation is so well known nowadays as to excite little notice; but when fairly considered, it is really marvellous, and most creditable to the capacity and sound sense of the English sportsman.

The 'Jockey Club' of athletics, the Amateur Athletic Association, did not take its rise until comparatively late in athletic history. For a great many years the Amateur Athletic Club, which was formed in London from the chief University and London athletes of the day, and which instituted the championship meeting in 1866, assumed a position in athletics like that of the M.C C. in cricket, and no other governing body was needed. From various causes, however, the chief of which was the rising strength and popularity of the other great metropolitan club, the L.A.C., the A.A.C. gradually began to decay. The original members of the A.A.C. ceased to take any active part in its welfare, and the few new members who joined became members simply for the purpose of training upon the club-ground at Lillie Bridge, the club holding no other sports except the championship meeting. To such a stage of apathy had the club sunk in 1876 that an unfriendly critic declared it had only three active members - the secretary, the pony, and the roller.

Up to this time the L.A.C. meetings - the most important in London - were held on the A.A.C. ground at Lillie Bridge; but in 1876 a final rupture occurred between the A.A.C. and L.A.C. over 'gate-money' arrangements, and in 1877 the L.A.C. departed to its own ground at Stamford Bridge. In 1877 and 1878 the championship meeting still was held without objection under the management of the A.A.C. at Lillie Bridge, upon the Monday following the Oxford and Cambridge sports, although a strong feeling was growing up in London and the provinces that the date of the fixture gave an unfair advantage to University men. The real truth of the matter was that in the twelve years that had passed since the foundation of the championship meeting, the state of athletic society had undergone a vital change, and the A.A.C. had failed to 'move with the times.' In 1866 and the next few years the University runners were by far the most important section of the athletic community, both in number and merit, and provided about two-thirds of the entries to the sports, while the few Londoners and provincials who were athletes were in a social position which enabled them to find leisure enough to train in the spring to meet the University runners.

Before 1878 a new class of runners had sprung up both in London and the provinces. The provincial runners were (as they still are) for the most part drawn from the 'mechanic, artizan, and labourer' class of the community. In the North they were accepted as amateurs; at Lillie Bridge, where the Henley definition of an amateur held good, they were, according to the rule, excluded; although, as a matter of fact, either from accident or from design, their entries were often accepted. The bulk of the London runners, although of quite a different class from the provincials, were clerks or business men who were tied to their desks during the day, and were unable to train except in the evening. The only chance, therefore, that many of them had of getting fit for a spring championship in March or the beginning of April necessitated their practising in the dark. From different reasons, therefore, in London and the provinces athletics had become a summer pastime, while at Oxford and Cambridge they were pursued mainly in the winter months.

The three University terms are short, and the various sports have all to be accommodated; so the arrangement both at Oxford and Cambridge is, that athletics and football are cultivated in the two winter terms, the summer term being reserved for cricket and boating (and examinations). It became obvious, therefore, that a summer championship would place the University men at a disadvantage, while a spring fixture would give them a decided 'pull.' Soon after the opening of the Stamford Bridge grounds, the L.A.C., then under the management of Messrs. James and William Waddell, placed itself at the head of the agitation for the summer championship; and, after much fruitless negotiation and discussion, the L.A.C. runners in a body 'boycotted' the spring championship at Lillie Bridge in the spring of 1879, and it was accordingly confined to the University men and a few provincial athletes, including Webster, the walker, and Warburton, the long distance runner. In the summer of 1879 an opposition championship was held on the Stamford Bridge ground, under the management of a committee consisting almost entirely of London runners, together with some few secretaries of clubs from the Midlands; but the Northerners, who had by that time formed themselves into a Northern Counties Athletic Association, held aloof, as they were standing out for the contention that a championship meeting should be open to any amateur, of whatever social position, provided he had never run for money.

The summer championship was a decided failure, in spite of the presence of W. G. George, who won both the mile and five-mile races, two-thirds of the winners being from the L.A.C alone. Early in the spring of 1880 the Lillie Bridge championship was again advertised for the usual date, and again notices were given by the London runners that they should decline to compete. The dispute also with regard to the amateur definition was still unsettled, the provincials maintaining in a body that the 'mechanic, artizan, or labourer' class should be admitted as amateurs, provided they had never run for money. The wide definition had already been accepted by the Northern Counties Association - a body then consisting of some sixteen strong clubs - while in the Midlands a similar body, consisting -of some eight or nine clubs, was already in process of formation. Under the circumstances, it occurred to some of the leading athletes at Oxford, early in the spring of 1880, that the best way to settle both burning questions was by a general conference of representatives of leading clubs; and it was further thought that the invitations to such a conference should be issued in the joint names of the Oxford and Cambridge clubs.