From Knox to Dyson: Coaching, Amateurism and British Athletics, 1912–1947

Abstract

Coaching has a long history in athletics, dating back to the era of professional pedestrians such as Captain Barclay. By the early twentieth century, because of the dominance of the amateur hegemony, the notion of coaching in British athletics was in retreat. Governing bodies like the Amateur Athletics Association associated coaching with professionalism. However, due to the rise in international competition, especially the Olympic Games, this idea was reconsidered. As Britain began to slip from its place as the pre-eminent sporting nation, coaching took on a greater significance among the athletics hierarchy at least as far back as 1912. This article examines this process from 1912 to 1947, when criticism over Britain's performance increasingly began to be thought of as a reflection of national prestige and the fitness of the nation. In addition, it locates coaching developments not only within the shifting nature of amateurism but argues that coaching itself had an important role in changing the subtle and complex meanings of amateurism.

Notes

1. Richard Holt, ‘Amateurism and the English Gentleman: the Anatomy of a Sporting Culture’, (unpublished paper presented at the 60th conference of the Japan Society for Physical Education, Health and Sport Sciences: Historical Research Section, Hiroshima University, 27 Aug, 2009).

2. There have been two PhDs written on women's athletics: Lynne Robinson, ‘“Tripping Daintily into the Arena: A Social History of English Women's Athletics 1921–1960’ (PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 1996); Gregory Moon, ‘A New Dawn Rising: An Empirical and Social Study Concerning the Emergence and Development of English Women's Athletics until 1980’ (PhD thesis, University of Surrey, 1997). For overviews on the history of athletics see Jeremy Crump, ‘Athletics’, in Sport in Britain: A Social History, ed. Tony Mason (Cambridge, 1989), 44–77; Martin Polley, ‘“The Amateur Rules”: Amateurism and Professionalism in Post-War British Athletics’, in Amateurs and Professionals in Post-War British Sport, eds, A. Smith and D. Porter (London, 2000), 81–114.

3. A recent exception is David John Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett: Coaching Practices and Coaching Lives in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England’ (PhD thesis, De Montfort University, 2008). See also Roberta Park, ‘Athletes and Their Training in Britain and America, 1800–1914’, in Sport and Exercise Science: Essay in the History of Sports Medicine, eds., Jack Berryman and Roberta Park (Chicago, 1992), 57–107. In Tom McNab, Peter Lovesey and Andrew Huxtable, An Athletics Compendium: An Annotated Guide to the UK Literature of Track and Field (Boston Spa, 2001), McNab has written an overview of the history of athletics, which is largely concerned with training and coaching methods. Despite the impressive breadth of this essay, it is largely teleological.

4. For a discussion of the relationship between amateurism, sport and science in the post-war period see Vanessa Heggie, ‘“Only the British Appear to be Making a Fuss”: The Science of Success and the Myth of Amateurism at the Mexico Olympiad, 1968’, Sport in History 28, no. 2 (2008): 213–35.

5. Crump, ‘Athletics’, 53.

6. Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford, 1989), 275.

7. It was actually horse racing that produced the first documented training manuals. See Peter Mewett, ‘From Horses to Humans: Species Crossovers in the Origin of Modern Sports Training’, Sports History Review 33, no. 1 (2002): 95–120. See also Peter Radford, The Celebrated Captain Barclay: Sport, Money and Fame in Regency Britain (London, 2001).

8. The words ‘coach’ and ‘trainer’ for the purpose of this article are interchangeable. The use of the word ‘coach’ did not emerge until the mid-nineteenth century and its etymology is closely connected with notions of class. For a more detailed explanation see Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 1–19.

9. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 67–81.

10. Wray Vamplew, ‘Training’, in Encyclopedia of Traditional British Rural Sports, ed. Tony Collins, John Martin and Wray Vamplew (London, 2005), 270_1; Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (London, 1998), 37–9; Thomas Schlich, ‘The Emergence of Modern Surgery’, in Medicine Transformed: Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1800–1930, ed. Deborah Brunton (Manchester, 2004), 68.

11. Peter Radford, ‘From Oral Tradition to Printed Record: British Sports Science in Transition’, Stadion 12/13 (1986–87): 295–304.

12. McNab et al., Athletics Compendium, xxxv–xxxvi.

13. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 91–2; Vamplew, ‘Training’, 270–1.

14. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 52, 102–3, 108.

15. McNab et al., xvi.

16. James I. Lupton and James M.K. Lupton, The Pedestrian's Record: To which is Added a Description of the External Human Form (London, 1890).

17. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 108.

18. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 102, 108.

19. Park, ‘Athletes and Their Training’, 70.

20. Sam Mussabini, The Complete Athletic Trainer (London, 1913), 143.

21. Sam Mussabini, The Complete Athletic Trainer (London, 1913), 141; Harry Andrews, Training for Athletics and General Health (London, 1911), ch. 2.

22. Andrews, Training, 87–8.

23. Mussabini, The Complete Athletic Trainer, 10; David Terry, ‘An Athletic Coach Ahead of his Time’, British Society of Sports History Newsletter 11 (Spring 2000): 34–8.

24. Park, ‘Athletes and Their Training’, 93–4; F.A.M. Webster, Coaching and Care of Athletes (London, 1938), 26–9.

25. For the most authoritative analysis of amateurism see Holt, Sport and the British, ch. 2.

26. Park, ‘Athletes and Their Training’, 83.

27. Crump, ‘Athletics’, 51. In 1899, the AAA authorized the payment of athletes’ travelling expenses; this did not change until 1956.

28. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 38–44.

29. Mussabini, The Complete Athletic Trainer, v.

30. For a different view on sport and voluntarism see Peter Borsay, A History of Leisure: The British Experience since 1500 (Basingstoke, 2006), 57.

31. Martin Polley, ‘The Amateur Ideal and British Sports Diplomacy, 1900–1945’, Sport in History 26, no. 3 (2006): 457.

32. For a detailed examination of this period see Matthew Llewellyn, ‘A Nation Divided: Great Britain and the Pursuit of Olympic Excellence, 1912–1914’, Journal of Sport History 35, no. 1 (2008): 73–97. See also Arnd Krüger, ‘“Buying Victories is Positively Degrading”: European Origins of Government Pursuit of National Prestige through Sport’, in Tribal Identities: Nationalism, Europe, Sport, eds J.A. Mangan (London, 1996), 183–200.

33. For an in-depth analysis of the 1908 Olympics see Matthew McIntire, ‘National Status, the 1908 Olympic Games and the English Press’, Media History 15, no. 3 (2009): 271–86.

34. John Nauright, ‘Sport, Manhood and Empire: British Responses to the New Zealand Rugby Tour of 1905’, International Journal of the History of Sport 8, no. 2 (1991): 239–55.

35. Holt, Sport and the British, 274; McIntire, ‘National Status’, 272–5.

36. Overall, in 1908, Britain won 56 gold medals, 48 silver, and 37 bronze. The next best was the USA with 23, 12, and 11.

37. Times, 6 May 1906, quoted in British Olympic Council (BOC), Aims and Objects of the Olympic Games Fund (London: British Olympic Association, 1913), 5–6.

38. Times, 6 May 1906, quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 5.

39. Amateur Athletics Association (AAA), Olympic Committee Minutes, University of Birmingham Special Collections, Birmingham, 2 and 25 Nov. 1911, 3 Jan. 1912.

40. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 237.

41. Llewellyn, ‘A Nation Divided’, 76–7.

42. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, Letter from P.L. Fisher, Dec. 1911.

43. John Bryant, 3:59.4: The Quest to Break the 4 Minute Mile (London, 2004), 32–7.

44. Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 238.

45. In 1906 and 1908, the German Empire gave 12,000 Marks to equip and send its Olympic squads: Kruger, “Buying Victories”, 185–8.

46. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 9 March 1912.

47. In 1912, Britain won two track and field gold medals: Arnold Strode Jackson in the 1500m and the 4x100m men's relay. It also won one silver and four bronzes. In athletics the USA won: 13, 14, 11; Sweden, 5, 5, 5.

48. See Llewellyn, ‘A Nation Divided’, 73–97.

49. Success was based on a points table in which a first place was worth 3 points, second 2 and a third one point.

50. It was noted that Britain (and the British Empire) performed reasonably well in other Olympic sports. In the BOC's Aims and Objects, 5 it was claimed that Britain was still the best all-round sporting nation.

51. Times, 12 Aug. 1913 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 18.

52. Times, 5 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 6; British Olympic Association, Council Minutes, 24 April 1913.

53. Times, 29 July 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 11.

54. Times, 5 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 7.

55. British Olympic Council, Official Report of the Olympic Games of 1912 in Stockholm, 14.

56. Times, 8 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 12.

57. The Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912, 286–92. In 1912, Sweden ‘won’ the Olympics with 24 gold medals, 24 silvers and 17 bronzes. Britain was third overall behind America with 10, 15 and 16.

58. Times, 29 July 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 12.

59. Observer, 29 July 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 12.

60. Times, 14 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, p.12.

61. Times, 19 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, p.13.

62. Times, 10 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 12.

63. Times, 9 Aug. 1912 quoted in BOC, Aims and Objects, 13.

64. BOC, Aims and Objects, 14.

65. British Olympic Council, Official Report of the Olympic Games of 1912 in Stockholm, 8; British Olympic Association (BOA), Council Minutes, 24 April 1913.

66. BOC, Aims and Objects, 17.

67. BOC, Aims and Objects, 15.

68. BOA, Council Meeting Minutes, 2 April 1913.

69. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 4 Jan. 1913.

70. BOC, Aims and Objects, 32. Interestingly, prizes for scratch races would be provided but only if they were metric distances. The AAA actually didn't switch from imperial to metric measurements until 1969.

71. Mussabini, The Complete Athletic Trainer, 240.

72. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes 21 Nov. 1913, 20 Feb. 1914; Day, ‘From Barclay to Brickett’, 239, n916.

73. Crump, ‘Athletics’, 52.

74. Crump, ‘Athletics’, 52.; Mike Huggins and Jack Williams, Sport and the English, 1918–1939 (London, 2006), 116.

75. Times, 2 Aug. 1927, 6. There doesn't seem to have been the same anxieties over the British Empire Games, mainly because England ‘won’ the first two. Instead, there was much emphasis placed on their role of bringing the Empire together. After the first games in Hamilton in 1930, the British Council, commenting on England's first place in the medal table, had stated that it was the right and proper position for the Mother Country. In 1938, England was second to the hosts, Australia, although there was little comment on this: Times, 25 Nov. 1930, 6.

76. R. Beamish and Ian Ritchie, ‘From Fixed Capacities to Performance-Enhancement: The Paradigm Shift in the Science of “Training” and the Use of Performance-Enhancing Substances’, Sport in History 25, no. 3 (Dec. 2005): 418; David R. Bassett, ‘Scientific Contributions of A.V. Hill: Exercise Physiology Pioneer’, Journal of Applied Physiology 93, (2002): 1573–8.

77. Bryant, 3:59.4, 212–13.

78. Interval training was used by most top athletes after 1945. See Arnd Krüger, ‘Training Theory and Why Roger Bannister was the First Four-Minute Miler’, Sport in History 26, no. 2 (2006): 305–24; and P. David Howe, ‘Habitus, Barriers and the [Ab]use of the Science of Interval Training in the 1950s’, Sport in History 26, no. 2 (2006): 325–44.

79. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 27 Aug. 1923. However, the AAA, in accordance with its laws, continued to refuse to pay the travelling expenses of athletes who attended these centres.

80. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes,18 Dec. 1923.

81. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 15 April 1924.

82. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 15 April 1924, 6 May 1924. The other coaches were A. Claydon, F. Wright, W. Parrish and one unknown coach from Scotland.

83. Britain was fourth in the overall medal table behind USA, Finland and France respectively. In athletics, Britain won 3 golds, 2 silvers and 5 bronzes. USA won 12, 10, 10.

84. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 16 Sept. 1924.

85. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 5 Nov. 1923, 10 Dec. 1923. The BOA's total fund was £30,000.

86. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 27 Jan. 1925, 16 Jan. 1929. In a report following Amsterdam, it was stated that in preparation for the games, 150 letters had been sent to potential athletes in autumn 1927, and that ‘They were urged to consult the team manager and team captain on any matters on which advice was desired’. At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, Britain finished outside of the top five in the overall medal table. In athletics, Britain won 2 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze. No British women competed in the athletics.

87. In 1938, there were nearly 1,000 clubs affiliated to the AAA: the North – 223; the Midlands – 146; and the South – 625. AAA, Physical Fitness Committee Minutes, 9 June 1938.

88. See McNab et al., Athletics Compendium, 95–114.

89. Anthony Bateman, ‘“More Mighty Than The Bat, The Pen …”: Culture, Hegemony and the Literaturisation of Cricket’, Sport in History 23, no. 1 (2003): 27–44.

90. Christopher Lawrence and Anna-K. Mayer, ‘Regenerating England: An Introduction’, in their edited Regeneration England: Science, Medicine and Culture in Inter-War Britain (Amsterdam, 2000), 2.

91. Huggins and Williams, Sport, 122.

92. Douglas G.A. Lowe and A.E. Porritt, Athletics (London, 1929), 84.

93. Douglas G.A. Lowe and A.E. Porritt, Athletics (London, 1929), 84.

94. Lord David Burghley, ‘Foreword’, in Athletics, ed. Bevil Rudd, (London, 1938), v

95. H.A. Meyer, ‘Introduction’ in Athletics, ed. H.A. Meyer (London, 1958), 6.

96. Adolphe Abrahams and Harold Abrahams, Training for Athletes (London, 1928), 57.

97. Douglas G. A. Lowe, Track and Field Athletics (London, 1936), 20.

98. Lowe and Porritt, Athletics, 103.

99. R.M.N Tisdall and F. Sherie, The Young Athlete (London, 1933), 21.

100. A.M.A. Williams, Improve Your Athletics for Girls (London, 1934), 3.

101. Harold Abrahams Interview, NCAL XXV.I.67, University of Birmingham Special Collections.

102. Webster's first book was Olympian Field Events (London, 1913).

103. The Athlete, July 1936, 1.

104. Webster retired from the army in 1921 because (he claimed) of 75 per cent disability: P. Lovesey and T. McNab, A Compendium of Athletics, xxxviii.

105. Webster later coached his son F.R., who was British pole vault champion and represented Britain at the 1948 Olympics.

106. The Athlete, Nov. 1936, 98.

107. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 27 Nov. 1922.

108. AAA, Olympic Committee Minutes, 26 Feb. 1924, 18 March 1924.

109. The Athlete, Dec. 1936, 133.

110. Webster, Coaching, 7.

111. Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures: England 1918–1951 (Oxford, 1998), 46, 97.

112. F.A.M. Webster, Athletic Training for Men and Boys (London, 1929).

113. F.A.M. Webster, Why? – The Science of Athletics (London, 1937), 85, 345.

114. In the previous year, Webster had held a summer school for schoolmasters. It is not known how many attended the AAA school.

115. The Athlete, July 1936, 17.

116. The Athlete, July 1936, 31.

117. Times, 13 April 1949, 2, obituary.

118. The Athlete, Nov. 1936, 97–8. It was later re-named Sport.

119. The Athlete, Oct. 1936, 65–6.

120. The Athlete, Dec. 1936, 132.

121. In the overall medal table for 1936, Germany finished top with 33 golds, 26 silvers and 30 bronzes. In athletics (including women), Britain won 2 golds and 5 silvers. Germany won 5, 4, 7. USA won 14, 7, 4.

122. Stephen G. Jones, ‘State Intervention in Sport and Leisure in Britain between the Wars’, Journal of Contemporary History 22 (1987): 165; Phil Dine, ‘Sport and the State in Contemporary France: From la Charte des Sports to Decentralisation’, Modern and Contemporary France 6, no. 3 (1998): 301–11.

123. Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, ‘Building a British Superman: Physical Culture in Interwar Britain, Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 4 (2006): 609.

124. The Athlete, Nov. 1936, 98.

125. AAA, Physical Fitness Committee Minutes, letter to Lord Aberdare, chair of National Advisory Council, undated, 1937; National Archives [hereafter NA], ED 113/ 54, Amateur Athletics Association, memorandum to National Advisory Council, 10 May 1937.

126. An application from the Women's Amateur Athletic Association was turned down.

127. AAA, National Fitness Campaign Sub-Committee, 4 March 1938; Physical Fitness Committee, 28 July 1938, 13 Aug. 1938; 4 Oct. 1938.

128. NA, ED 113/57, Amateur Swimming Association File, letter to National Advisory Council for Physical Training, 14 June 1938.

129. NA, ED 113/54, National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, memo to D. Du B. Davidson, Board of Education from H.B. Usher, Treasury, 19 July 1938.

130. NA, ED 113/54 National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, letter from E.J. Holt, AAA hon. secretary to Captain L.F. Ellis, NFC, secretary, 2 May 1939.

131. Murray Phillips, From Sidelines to Centre Field: A History of Sports Coaching in Australia (Sydney, 2000), 73–4.

132. Bryant, 3:59.4, 235.

133. NA, ED 113/54 National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, memorandum 16 May 1939.

134. NA, ED 113/54 National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, letter from Captain L.F. Ellis, NFC, secretary to Philip Noel-Baker, 12 May 1939 (jottings).

135. NA, ED 113/54 National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, letter from E.H. Pelham, NFC, to E.J. Holt, AAA hon. secretary, 5 May 1939.

136. NA, ED 113/54 National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, letter from E.J. Holt, AAA hon. secretary to Sir Henry Pelham, 10 May 1939; letter from Philip Noel-Baker, AAA hon. secretary to Captain L.F. Ellis, NFC, secretary, 15 May 1939.

137. NA, ED 113/54 National Fitness Council, Amateur Athletics Association File, memorandum 16 June 1939.

138. Stampfl was initially sent to an internment camp in Canada. His ship, Andorra Star, was torpedoed and he was one of 400 survivors out of 2,400 on board. He later spent the rest of the war in Australia. Bryant, 3.59.4, 236.

139. Richard Holt and Tony Mason, Sport in Britain 1945–2000 (Oxford, 2000), 21–2.

140. T. McNab et al., Athletics Compendium, xli.

141. See Peter Beck, ‘Britain and the Cold War's “Cultural Olympics”: Responding to the Political Drive of Soviet Sport, 1945–58’, Contemporary British History 19, no. 2 (2005): 169–85.