tests engaged in by not a few of the clubs still in
existence.

The oval ball, with its historical associations, has a charm for them.
They then talked about the Association style of play with something akin
to contempt. "What," they might have been heard to say, "is the fun of
looking at people 'bobbing' a ball about with their heads, and the half
of a team doing nothing, while a couple or so of the players are engaged
at a time? Give us the closely-packed maul, the exciting individual run,
with the ball under the arm, the gallant struggle to ground it over the
opposing line, and, above all, the beautifully dropped goal." "But
nobody goes to see your matches now," remarks a newly-fledged convert to
the Association style of play, who has come to see the "Inter-City,"
"they got disgusted with your never-ending mauls and shoving matches,
preferring to witness scientific manipulation of the ball in dribbling,
and passing with the feet." "Pshaw! do you imagine we care a straw for
gate-money? We play the game for the love of it, and the genuine
exercise it affords," retorts the old Rugby adherent, "and respect it
all the more on that account." "Oh! it is all very well to tell one
that, but don't your leading clubs still charge for admission to their
matches?" "Yes; but this is more in the way of keeping out the roughs
from the field than for gain." Such conversation I have overheard
myself, and none of the sides made much by it.

Well can I remember the birth of Association Football in Scotland, and
look back to the time when there was not as many clubs as I could count
on the fingers of one hand. In 1870, a semi-International contest, under
Association rules, was played in London between Scotch men living in
England and an English Eleven, and continued till 1872, when, on
November 30th, the first real International match between England and
Scotland took place in Glasgow. In that same year, early in the season,
the celebrated Queen's Park Club (to whom Scotland owes the introduction
of the game), entered the lists for the English Challenge Cup, and were
drawn against the London Wanderers. It was at that point that the
matches which had hitherto been played in London between London
Scotchmen and Englishmen were given up in favour of an annual match
between Scotland and England, to be played alternately in London and
Glasgow, and, if possible, so to arrange the contest that the
Association match might be played in England th