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. 518
