Football: The Association Game/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
THE FOOTBALL OF TO-DAY.
Though the requirements necessary to attain excellence on the football field are in the main precisely the same to-day as they, were twenty years ago, the whole character of the game is as different as the old style of the Rugby game, with its heavy forwards and its wearisome scrummages, is to the new order, with its rapid changes, its lighter and faster forwards, its looser scrummages, and the recent development of passing among the backs, which has added so much to the popularity of Rugby rules during the last few years. Pluck, energy, weight, and quickness of decision are quite as valuable attributes for the football player as they ever were. The evolution of football, though, has necessitated not only a revision of the general system of play, but an entire rearrangement of the whole principle of the game—a complete alteration in the distribution of the players, as well as in the composition of the eleven. In the old times there were infinitely more opportunities for the exhibition of individual skill, and in some respects perhaps an Association match of thirty years ago was more interesting to watch for that particular reason. A skilful dribbler was then by no means a rarity; on the contrary, to dribble well was one of the chief ends of a forward's football education. It was necessary, as well, to be a good shot at goal, and these two qualities were essential to the attainment of any great degree of excellence as a forward in the sixties, and, in fact, until well into the seventies.
The arrangement of an eleven in those times was directed rather to strengthen the attack than to procure a stout defence. The tendency was certainly to favour the forwards rather than to encourage the backs. The formation of a team as a rule, indeed, was to provide for seven forwards, and only four players to constitute the three lines of, defence. The last line was, of course, the goal-keeper, and in front of him was only one full back, who had again before him but two half-backs, to check the rushes of the opposite forwards. Under the old style of play this formation was not so dangerous as it might appear to any 
one of the modern school of football. Dribbling had been chiefly encouraged at the schools, from which the game sprang, and purely individual play remained for a long time one of the chief features of an Association match. There was some little attempt at passing, of course, but a good dribbler stuck to the ball as long as he could, especially if he saw a reasonably good chance of outrunning the three backs, who formed the only obstacles he had to overcome. Long runs were frequent, and as a consequence individual skill was in a great measure the source of a football reputation.
To be a good dribbler was the Alpha and Omega of the forward's creed in the early days of Association football. At the same time it must not be understood that he was unprovided with support in case of any obstruction in the course of a run. There was the provision, of course, of backing up, i.e. of a player who followed up the ball ready either to receive the ball if it were passed to him, or to hustle or ward off any interference by the opposite forwards or backs. Still, at the best, backing-up existed more in theory than practice. The dribbler, indeed, lingered long on the football field; in fact, some time after he had ceased to be a potential factor in the game. Even as late as the commencement of the eighties—though some years before the forwards had been reduced to admit of an addition to the defence in the shape of a second full back—the advantages of dribbling were still represented in forcible terms by one of the earliest instructors in the art of football. This is a part of the advice he gave to forwards in the winter of 1878:—
"A really first-class player—I am now addressing myself solely to those who play up—will never lose sight of the ball, at the same time keeping his attention employed in spying out any gaps in the enemy's ranks, or any weak points in the defence, which may give him a favourable chance of arriving at the coveted goal. To see some players guide and steer a ball through a circle of opposing legs, turning and twisting as occasion requires, is a sight not to, be forgotten; and this faculty or aptitude for guiding the ball often places a slow runner on an equal footing with one much speedier of foot. Speed is not an indispensable ingredient in the formation of a 'good dribbler,' though undoubtedly fleetness of foot goes far to promote success. Skill in dribbling, though, necessitates something more than a go-ahead, fearless, headlong onslaught on the enemy's citadel; it requires an eye quick at discovering a weak point, and 'nous' to calculate and decide the chances of a successful passage."
The footballer of to-day will bear with us, it is to be hoped, in the attempt to portray, for the benefit of posterity, a type of the old school—"a poor player," to use Macbeth's phrases, "that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more." The quotation just given from the "Football Annual" will show that even then, when the seventies were on the wane, the dribbler's occupation was rapidly going, and that he was steadily undergoing a process of absorption in the general reconstruction of the football field.
An important alteration in the rules, enacting that the ball ought to be thrown out from touch in any direction instead of, as hitherto, thrown out straight, carried in 1877, marked a new era in the history of Association football. Mention is made incidentally of this change, because, though it did not become law without strenuous opposition all along the line, it tended to make the game so much faster, that it really, in some measure, helped to expedite the material revolution that was taking place in the Association game. It was at least contemporaneous with the first sign of the transition through which football was passing. "What was ten or fifteen years ago the recreation of a few," to quote again from the "Football Annual" of 1878, "has now become the pursuit of thousands— an athletic exercise, carried on under a strict system and, in many cases, by an enforced team of training, almost magnified into a profession." Here was the first note of the transformation the game was slowly undergoing, and the "Annual" plaintively called attention to the old football fogies, as likely to "recall with no small satisfaction the days when football had not grown to be so important as to make umpires necessary, and the 'gate the first subject of consideration.'"
In one respect, however, the "Football Annual" was obliged to admit that the alteration in the method of playing the Association game had been, to use its own words, "of infinite good, in that it had merged the individual in the side." Even then "passing," which had been first introduced in any degree of perfection in the early matches between London and Sheffield, had been slowly but surely ousting the dribbler. Individual excellence ceased to be the aim of the forward, and in its place a captain wisely directed his attention to the inculcation of united action. Mechanical precision was cultivated, and the extent of the combination of a team came to be the measure of its success or failure. Still, it was some time before the players in the south took really kindly to the new style of game. To them football was still an amusement uninfluenced by any considerations of "gate," and with true Conservatism they stuck to the old system, I am bound to admit, long after it had outlived its reputation. Even the example of the Scotch teams which visited London had been thrown away, and the systematic adjustment of the forwards in vogue with the Queen's Park, the Vale of Leven, and others of the leading Scotch clubs, failed for some time to make any impression on the general body of footballers in the South of England.
The rearrangement of an eleven so as to suit the alteration in the general method of play, as I have said, proved to be a very slow process. The main object of the new reforms was to strengthen the defence without sacrificing to any extent the offensive powers of a team. As it was, the introduction of the passing game revolutionized the forward play to such a degree, that it was quite possible to spare one of the forwards without materially weakening the attack.
The formation of an eleven in the early days of Association football was a premium on forward play, and the backs were for a long time, to all intents and purposes, ignored. To be a good dribbler, as well as a safe, short passer, was the perfection of art when the game was in its infancy. It is hardly to be wondered at that this should have been the highest possible development of football at the time, for the bulk of the players were merely carrying out a system which had been inculcated at the public schools. Under the original constitution, indeed, there was little to encourage the cultivation of defensive play. At first an eleven was constituted of eight forwards, one back, one half-back, and a goal-keeper; and even at a later date, where there was practically no offside the player who had charge of the posts had about as thankless a position as it would be possible to conceive. This method of distributing the players, however, did not last very long. It soon became evident that the policy was not the most conducive to the best interests of the game. A player possessed of great pace, as well as capable of working the ball with any degree of dexterity, when he once got away, had practically little or 
The first move in this direction was the withdrawal of the third centre to furnish a second full-back—an absolute necessity—to meet the additional strain on the defence caused by the development of the passing system. The adoption of the extra full-back for a time satisfied the requirements of the older school of football players at least Some time, indeed, elapsed before there was any movement in the direction of a further limitation of the forwards. So late as 1874 the original arrangement of an eleven, consisting of seven forwards, two half-backs, a full-back, and a goal-keeper, was still in force; and the writer of an article on the Association game, published not very long since, pointed out that this was the principle on which the two elevens were constituted in the Inter-University match of that year. The appearance of the second full-back was an afterthought, at least in England; and it was not until the following winter that he came to be regarded as a recognized appendage to an eleven.
Meanwhile the principal Scotch clubs had already begun to see the importance of still greater reform, to meet the change which had gradually been altering the whole tone of the game. They had long before tried, and successfully, the practice of systematic passing, and the disappearance of the dribbler was the logical outcome of the change. Under the new dispensation it was necessary that the eleven should work on a definite system, and with a mechanical precision which had hitherto been unknown. Each player had his allotted station; he was, in fact, an integral part of a machine which could not work smoothly unless every section was fitted to a nicety and the gear properly adjusted.
So far the reformers were satisfied with a fairly equal distribution of the attack and the defence, and for some time the general practice was to constitute an eleven of six forwards and five backs. As the principle of passing, however, came to be more fully understood, and the attack grew more open, it became more and more evident that the first line of defence was even yet hardly sufficient to cope with the increased rapidity of the game. As the dribbler pure and simple became extinct, and the individual gradually became absorbed in the general mechanism of the side, the selfish player not only grew at first to be an object of distrust, but practically in course of time ceased to have a place in the internal economy of football. The transition, however, from the era of the individual player to the adoption of a constructive combination, gave rise to many interesting experiments of different kinds.
The Queen's Park team were the first to demonstrate the possibilities of combination. In the main they favoured a system of short passing, and it was in a great measure the readiness with which the Scotch players adapted themselves to the new idea that enabled Scotland to show to so much greater advantage in its International matches with England for many years. At the same time the credit of introducing passing must not be ascribed altogether to the Scotchmen. The rules affected by the Sheffield Association gave rise to a loose and disjointed game, which directly encouraged the adoption of a certain kind of passing, and, in fact, the main feature of the general play of Sheffield teams was the transmission of the ball from one player to another, according to their stations, arranged on a definite plan.
The example of the Sheffield players was not lost on their neighbours, and combination of some kind or other was cultivated in other of the northern districts. East Lancashire had meanwhile taken up the Association game with enthusiasm. Just about the time when passing began to be considered essential to the success of a team, Blackburn furnished two clubs, both of which played an important part in the competition for the Football Association Cup. As far as I can remember, the first English team to give any exhibition of a systematic passing game in London was the Blackburn Olympic, when they won the Cup in the spring of 1883 at the Oval. The tactics of the Olympic were altogether different to those which had found favour with the Scotchmen, and though they demonstrated a new possibility, it was not of a kind to secure the approval of southern players. Their game was an -alternation of long passing and vigorous rushes, which, effectual enough as it proved as a novelty, and under the favourable circumstances of that particular match, did not impress the majority of southern players as likely to be the best possible style of play under every conceivable condition of ground and weather.
I have been at some pains to show the chief incidents which marked the evolution of the Association game. The leaders in the movement which gave rise to the scientific game of to-day were, as I have already stated, Queen's Park in Scotland and the Sheffield players on this side of the Tweed. The next move—and the most important of the many changes which have taken place in the formation of a team—though, was essentially the work of English; rather than of Scotch footballers. For some time before its adoption the idea of a third half-back had been urged, and with pertinacity, by some of the best judges of the game. The northern clubs, who were the first to take kindly to the passing game, had been steadily strengthening their teams by the help of players from the other side of the Tweed. They had been gradually assuming a preponderance in the working of the Association as well; and, in fact, the old order of football had been changing, giving place to new. So far as the game itself went, the result was a benefit rather than a disadvantage to Association football. The Northerners had been at least foremost in the movement which led to the latest defensive formation, the removal of the second centre forward to occupy a position as centre half-back, a post akin to that taken in the Eton game by the flying man. It was realized that this generally was the most responsible place in the field perhaps, if only from the fact that to fill it properly requires a combination of offensive as well as defensive skill, a capacity for attack as well as a power of defence sufficient to keep the opposite forwards at bay, and to prevent them as much as possible from getting within shooting distance of his own goal.
The credit of the introduction of the principle of combination, of which the third half-back was the keystone, belongs, as I have already said, to English players. The movement in reality originated with some of tJie leading amateurs in the South of England. The first team to bring the theory of combination into practice, or at least to carry it out to any degree of perfection, was the Cambridge University eleven some twenty years ago. The practical outcome of the exhibition given by Cambridge in 1883 was a general acknowledgment of the merits of the new formation. In this connection it is worthy of remark that the Scotch players were the most backward in accepting the third half-back, who is now considered an essential to every properly constituted eleven. The improvement in the game generally, the result of the adoption of a policy of combination, was not long in taking effect on the English players, and, indeed, it is worthy of note that, since the third half-back was introduced in 1884, though the Scotchmen have been able to claim the majority of victories in their International matches with England, the positions have been changed to such an extent, that in point of actual play the advantage has been decidedly on the side of England.
Indeed, in the twenty-three matches which were played from 1884 to 1906 inclusive, England has a bare majority of victories, having won nine times to eight. How far the quality of Association football in general has been improved by the, as many think, grandmotherly legislation of late years must be a matter of opinion. The great competition among the richer clubs to secure a strong side regardless of all expense, has been naturally a distribution of the better players over a wider area, and a consequent levelling up of the game all over the country. On the other hand, the whole trend of legislation of late years has been to whittle down any survival of the robust methods which made football a strenuous exercise, with the result certainly of no advantage to the game as a whole. The glorification of the mechanical at the expense of the physical element in individual play has had the effect of developing an ultra scientific game which, in the matter of attack at all events, is most ludicrous and certainly by comparison most ineffective. A happy mean in this as well as in other things represents the best solution.