Association could hardly have had a better advertisement, and the enterprise of those who had been mainly responsible for the ratification of the match was fully rewarded by the great impetus it gave to the diffusion of Association rules throughout the west of Scotland. A return match was brought off at the end of the same season at Kennington Oval, when England won by four goals to one. Since that time only one fixture has been made for each winter, with a great advantage to Scotland, who, until the last twenty years, had an almost uninterrupted sequence of victories.
The satisfactory completion of this first International match marked a new era in Association football, and the effects were, as was only to be expected, far-reaching. In Scotland the Rugby game soon found itself faced by a formidable rival. New clubs were formed in all parts, with every sign of vitality. On every available open space youngsters found amusement in urging the flying ball, so that there was a constant accession of likely players to disseminate the game all over the country. The development of the Association game in Scotland was indeed extraordinary; and in the course of a few years the enthusiasm of the Queen's Park club had worked such a wonderful effect, that the Rugby element, which had for so long enjoyed a monopoly of Scotch football, was already in a minority.
By this time the future of the Association game was well assured. The fusion of the Sheffield Association rules with those of the parent body removed the last remaining obstacle in the way of a universal code for players of that way of thinking. Since then, though the constitution of the Association has undergone several, and most of them important, changes, the game itself remains very much the game it was, with only some very slight modifications, with
