Youth And Talent Are No Match For Age And Treachery

When we “almost-formalised” Team Grumpy as a vehicle for our two-up time trialling endeavours, we used an old saying for our byline:

Youth and Talent are no match for Age and Treachery

This is seen in the "team logo" below.

We’d seen this line, or one very similar to it, attributed to the great campionissimo Fausto Coppi, and also used in T-shirts celebrating a rugby club. It was pretty obvious that neither represent its bona fide origins. Indeed, we strongly doubted Coppi ever came out with the saying. But for a pair of ageing cyclists trying to maintain some lind of competitive edge, we felt it was wryly amusing.

Now, the excellent Quote Investigator website has published its finding on the matter: Quote Origin: Old Age and Treachery Will Always Defeat Youth and Skill - with surprising findings (to me at least).

The earliest close match dates to 1975, but the origins of the quotation are much earlier, with precursors dating to at least 1910.