October 11, 1902
What used to be done.
What should be done.
A pithy article by a noted expert.
(Written for Evening Telegraph by Mr. Wm. McGregor)
Some men do not want any running exercise; others may want a great deal. It is all very well to say that I and writers similarly situated do not know so much about this as old professional runners, but the theories of these worthy gentlemen have been exploded so often that probably those who look on and think over the subject carefully, and watch the effects of various methods of training, acquire a knowledge which is of some use.
What could have been more nonsensical, for instance, than the old forms of training in vogue in the ancient days of the prize-ring? No matter what a man had to do, whether he had to fight, run, row, or walk, he had to go through the same regime.
He had to eat huge chunks of half-cooked meat, and take a prodigious amount of exercise. At least half the exercise given must have been required to work off the excessive amount of solid food which was practically forced down a man’s throat.
It was not until W.G George turned professional that these methods were exploded. Now a far more intelligent spirit obtains in regard to training. A man is allowed to eat pretty well what he likes so long as it is good and nourishing food, and the great object is to let him lead as natural a life as possible.
Great care is taken that he does not go excess in anything. His mentors try to put him into the ring or on to the track in his natural condition, with the bloom of health upon his cheeks.
The over-trained man is doomed. The under-trained man may have a chance. What is wanted is to find out, of course, a life which suits the individual, and let him follow out that course sensibly and logically. But there can be no doubt that the old brutal methods meant the ruin of many a promising young fellow.
If a man could stand the rigorous treatment he received it may have benefited him, but to those who could not stand it the system was one of downright cruelty.
The method once so universally recognised of sending a team away from home to prepare for a big cup-tie is not so much in favour at the present. It has its advantages, but there are disadvantages which almost counterbalances them.
My firm conviction has always been that when a team is taken to a health resort the men get far more solid food than is good for them. The average footballer when at home is not used to heavy meat meals three or four times a day; yet when he goes to the seaside to train he is most sumptuously fed, four good heavy meals a day being provided for him.
I am certain from what I have seen that over feeding has had a lot to do with the failure of many a team which has gone to the seaside to get fit, and which has, in a sense, become thoroughly unfit.
If the men were used to this kind of diet the effects of it would not be quite so baneful as they are. Although I am by no means a vegetarian, I am strongly convinced that we as a race eat too much meat, and that a more extensive vegetable diet might be taken with advantage.
I am not a bigot one way or the other, but the average man would be healthier if he ate more vegetables and fruit and less meat food. Then, again, some men require the greater part of th week to get used to new surroundings.
The air may be too bracing for some, and in other places may be too relaxing for others. Three or four days of the week spent in training does not serve its purpose if more than half of it is wasted before the men begin to derive from their new environment.
The great advantage, and, in a sense, I think, the only advantage of taking men away from home is this – that you have them under your eyes during the whole of the time they are out, and you know that a moderate life is being led. The men are away, too, from their misguided friends, whose only methods of showing appreciation of football talent seems to be to induce them to take sufficient liquor to diminish that football ability which they affect to admire.
Why a man whose admiration for a footballer is so pronounced should endeavour to unfit the subject of his admiration for the pastime in which he excels, my illogical mind fails to appreciate.
But, looking at the record of the teams who have gone away to train, I am not by any means convinced that the average form has been improved by their sojourn in strange places. Anything more ridiculous than the policy which has sometimes been pursued of bringing the men straight from a seaside place and landing them on the ground a few minutes before the great event of the season it would be difficult to conceive.
I think the system which some of the Midland Clubs have adopted of sending the men to Droitwich for brine baths, and then taking them to a breezy spot like Holte Fleet, where they are within reasonable distance of their own ground, has much to commend it. But, when you have argued high and low, I think the fact remains that the best course of training a man can have is to have a business to go to regularly.
The most consistent and tireless player I know is the man who follows an occupation. Such a man, living a reasonable life, wants nothing but good walking exercise to fit him for football, and he is in this happy position, that when Saturday afternoon comes he looks forward to his game of football with real delight.
The same cannot be said of the man who is forced to attend the ground every morning, who is there to go through a fixed set of exercise or stereotyped routine, and to whom football is often more of a bore than a pleasure.
It seems ridiculous when you come to analyse it, but really it amounts to this – that the men who want training are the men who do nothing else but play football. It is axiomatic that most of our professional footballers have far too much time on their hands, and in that spare time they are driven to seek recreation in ways which do not conduce to the maintenance of physical fitness.
To be very blunt, the man who has the bulk of the time on his hands is apt to drink more than the man who is engaged at work, say, from eight to six. I am quite sure that the man to whom football comes as a recreation rather than a routine is apt to show more intelligence in the pursuit of it, and to manifest far more enthusiasm, than the one to whom the Saturday match is merely a prolongation of his hours of toil
(Source: Evening Telegraph: October 11, 1902)
** The first article can be seen here.
"Play Up, Liverpool" 