They are to be found in all ranks and conditions of life, from the lord of the manor down to the apprentice-artizan and newly-fledged young man from shop and warehouse. Like love, football, for the time, at least, levels all distinction; and albeit I know, for that of it, many a well-matched pair, who have met for the first time on the grand stand at Hampden Park, looking back with feelings of intense pleasure to the time when their "infant love began." Were it not, in fact, that Caledonia is at times so "stern and wild," and that football and frost can never flourish together, the game would be far more extensively patronised by the fair sex. At a cup tie or an International match, it is quite a common thing to see the Convener of an adjacent county,[A] the city magnate, the suburban magistrate, the Free Kirk minister, and the handsome matronly lady, standing side by side with the horny-handed mechanic, the office-boy, the overgrown schoolboy, and the Buchanan Street "swell." They all watch the game and surroundings in their own particular way. I once heard a quaint, but nevertheless true, idea of how some of the more familiar visitors give way to a certain failing, which in itself can scarcely be called such, but is not unfrequently looked upon with amazement by the stranger. The Scotchman, it is said somewhere, is not so much respected for the manner in which he goes about a thing as the way in which he does it, and the remark, when applied to this particular case, will be all the more potent. Here it is:—"Where are you going to howl to-morrow (the query is put on Friday), Jack?" "Oh! the Queen's and Vale, of course; they will have a close thing of it, and there will be rare fun," says Jack. "Old Anderson was very indignant last Saturday, and declares that he will never stand near me again at any such matches. He was quite ashamed of my howling, and positively charges me with digging my thumbs into his ribs, and nearly strangling his youngest son at every scrimmage near each goal." "It serves you right, Tom. I was always afraid something of that kind would happen; you shouldn't be so demonstrative." Tom was silent. He was as jealous of his own propriety and good behaviour as anybody could be, but being of a most excitable nature, he did things in the heat of a tussle for which he was afterwards very sorry, and many ignored the fact that he was an old Rangers man, who scored the first goal for that then young club in a close and exciting game with the once powerful Clydesdale. As the Association rules are very easily learned in theory, the great bulk of the spectators show an acquaintance with them which is pleasing to see, and when an assumed infringement takes place, it is generally heralded from some part of the field by a partisan of the contending elevens. The only apparently unintelligible point to them is the "off-side" rule, and I have seen a goal kicked in this way hailed with deafening cheers and waving of hats and handkerchiefs. These manifestations, however, were turned into low growling when the leather was sent away by a free kick. The ladies, too, talk about "free kicks," "corner-kicks," "heading," "hands," "beautiful passing and dribbling," as if to the manner born. I cannot, however, dismiss the subject of spectators without referring to the use and abuse of a free and unrestrained vent to pent-up feelings. There is the low, vulgar fellow, whose collarless neck and general coarseness of exterior and language indicates that he possesses all the vices but none of the virtues of the "honest working man." Work he will not, except he is compelled, and although to "beg he is ashamed," he would be the first to do a mean action if he had the opportunity. It is he who, by his foul tongue and very breath, contaminates the atmosphere he breathes, and brings some of the matches into disrepute. Unfortunately he has paid his money at the gate (sometimes he gets over the fence), and you can't turn him out; but he makes hundreds miserable. He is, in fact, one of the "unimproving and irresponsible," and moral suasion has no power over his hard and stony heart. Sometimes in an evil moment his vulgar remark is challenged by one of the players on the contending sides, and this gives him an air of importance. There is nothing, however, which shows a want of gentlemanly bearing in a team more clearly than paying the least attention to exclamations from excited spectators. They should treat them with silent indifference, and if needs be, contempt, and play away as if there were nobody present at all. It is sometimes, nevertheless, very hard for country clubs to come to Glasgow and play for the city charities, and get howled at by this class of spectators at certain stages of the game. The great bulk of those around, however, are indignant at such conduct, and regret it all the more on account of being utterly unable to prevent it. There is another spectator, too, who not unfrequently forgets himself, and he is to be found on what might be termed the "touch-line" of society. He is the fast young man, who considers you a perfect nonentity if you don't bet. I don't mean betting on football pure and simple, for he only lays a few "bobs" on it, but on the latest quotations for the Derby, the St. Leger, the Waterloo Cup, or the University boat race. His "screw" is not very big at the best, but he can always lay "half a sov." on the event, whether his landlady's bill is paid or not, and touching that little account of Mr. Strides, the tailor, why, he'll pay it when he "makes a pile." He thinks too much of himself ever to get married, and the young ladies of his acquaintance may indulge in a sigh of relief at escaping from the toils of such a consummate fool. When he has something "on" a match, and sees that it is lost, he not unfrequently opens out, and is not over choice in his language. The game, however, goes on, and is greatly enjoyed by the general spectator, despite such drawbacks, and if you happen to go to the same locality on a similar occasion, you are all but sure to see old and familiar faces crowding round the stand and area.
[A] The late lamented Mr. A. B. Stewart, Convener of the County of Bute, was an enthusiastic admirer of the game, and many will miss his handsome firm and kindly remark when future matches are played on the leading grounds in Scotland.
The modern Association football player is a man of some ability. As a rule he is temperate in his habits, with a good appetite, and sound in limb. Long before he knew what football was, he was blessed with a large share of health. When a boy at school he used to be remarkable for punctuality, but occasionally got into trouble from neglected lessons, in consequence of a weakness for indulging in out-door sports. He loved the rude style of football, then played, dearly (he knew of nothing better), although goal-posts, touch-lines, corner-flags, and other modern appliances were totally unknown. As for "hacking," it was endured by all and sundry with the air of martyrs. Why, if you had not nerve enough to "give and take" in that line, your chance of getting near the "goal score" was remote indeed, and you were looked upon as a coward and the verriest noodle. He, of course, grows older, and by and by joins an average club, and gets on very well. The crack football players, however, have many maturities. They generally come slowly, but surely, and leave behind them powerful impressions. They are like the occasional planets, not the stars which are seen every evening if you care to look towards the "milky way." They are mostly fine-looking fellows, with pleasant countenances and grandly-moulded limbs. They have just passed a severe course of probation in the football field, without even an outward trace of anxiety. The vagaries of the game admit of no distinction of class. The crack player is, in fine, found among all classes—in the gentleman's son, in the clerk at the desk, and the lad in the workshop. There may be different ways of working out the latent ability, but sooner or later it begins to show itself. Some thought it was scarcely fair in the Duke of Wellington to say that "Waterloo was won at Eton." There is not the least possibility of doubt such a remark might be misunderstood, and many feel inclined to charge the "Iron Duke" with ignoring the services rendered by the non-commissioned officers and men of the British army, for everybody knows that none but the sons of the opulent class can ever gain admittance to Eton. It looked, in fact, very like the credit being given to the officers for winning that great battle. Wellington, however, had his eye on the football and cricket grounds when he spoke these words, and no doubt intended to convey the idea that these games went a long way in bracing up the nerve which served so well on the battle-field. Close adhesion to the practice of any game really and sincerely creates fresh possibilities of that perfection and discipline. And why should this not be so in football, particularly as it is a game regulated by sharply-defined maxims? Everyone can't be the captain of an eleven; and as for Wellington's remarks, the most humble member of the team may show the greatest ability. You may belong to the most "swellish" of clubs, and have a fair reputation, but you are not chosen to play in the International. Your father may be the "Great Mogul" himself, but that has no effect. The coveted place can only be attained by merit, and this is one of the most successful and meritorious traits in Scotch Association Football. You don't, as a rule, even get a place now by reputation, and so much the better. When clubs were few and good players fewer, you were not unfrequently favoured with one, whether you deserved it or not, but now the matter is different, and justly so, since we cannot go into a single town or village in Scotland without seeing the practice ground and goal-posts of the now omnipresent football club.
IX.—A DREAM OF THE PAST.
I am getting old and stiff now, at least in a football sense, but have seen and played in, perhaps, more big matches in my time than many will be inclined to give me credit for now. Somehow or other the modern player does not seem to go into the game for the pleasure it affords nearly so heartily as his representative of yore, but it may be that the Compulsory Clause in the Education Act has made him more refined, or, if you like it, a good deal more cunning in hiding his animal spirits and exuberance of innocent fun. Be that as it may, the Association Football of to-day does not really possess the same charm to me as it did ten years ago.
I was once a very fair player, but never considered sufficiently brilliant to get my name handed down to posterity as the crack half-back of the "Invincible Club" of bygone days, or proclaimed aloud in the secret recesses of the great "houf" where football players now retire to spend a social hour after finding themselves the victors of a hard-fought field. I must admit, however, that I did some clever things which the newspapers of that era ought to have at least given me a "puff" for, but they didn't; in fact, I never, like Byron (Lord Byron, I mean), awoke one morning to find myself famous, because my football was that of days long ago, in an obscure (to football, at least) country town; and, besides, the game then was conducted in rather a rude and undignified fashion. Talk about rules, we had those which might, for all I know, have been framed by the "Chief Souter of Selkirk" himself to suit the peculiar mode of playing on the streets at Shrovetide (a practice still in vogue near that Border land). Our captain knew nothing of such new-fangled devices as the Rugby code, and far less of the Football Association. Ours, in brief, was a sort of combination of both styles of play. To win a "hail," as it was termed, the opposing side, with shoving, hacking, and other descriptions of horse-play, had only to pass the ball over the line, and it was won. Touch-lines, corner-flags, twenty-five flags, and even upright posts, and the usual concomitants of the scientific game of to-day, were unknown. This leads me, then, to the point of tracing the rise and progress of the game in Scotland during the past dozen years, leaving its antiquity and origin, about which there are mere surmises, an "open question." That it was played, however, in Edinburgh and Glasgow at least twenty years ago, under rules somewhat similar to those now adhered to by the followers of the Rugby Union I can well remember, and this was the only kind of football known by the young athletes of that time. Over a dozen years ago many were the exciting contests 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 the same season that the Rugby match would be played in Scotland, and vice versa. It might be as well here to say that the celebrated Scotch club and the Wanderers, then in the zenith of their fame, played a drawn game with no goals on either side, but finding it too difficult a job to meet the Englishmen again, they scratched. Since then, however, the Rugby and Association Internationals take place regularly as each season comes round, in Scotland and England alternately. It is a curious fact, and one worthy of record, that the Scottish Rugby Football Union and the Scottish Football Association were both constituted in the same year—viz., 1873. The Union was formed after the International Rugby match at Glasgow, Dr. J. Chiene, of Edinburgh, being in the chair on the occasion. The Scottish Football Association was formed under the presidency of Mr. Robert Gardner, the once famous goalkeeper.
The annual competition for the Association Cup, when the clubs who entered for it the first year only numbered 16, were proceeded with in a much more gentlemanly way than is the case now, but the reason is obvious. Hitherto young and inexperienced clubs never dreamt of entering against opponents with whom they knew they had no chance, and, consequently, the competitions were left to be fought out among the cream of exponents of the dribbling game. As each year came round, however, and young clubs began to multiply exceedingly, many of them considered they should have a shy at the "Cup," and as the entry-money for membership to the Association was only a nominal sum, they competed, and were never heard of after the first tie. No one who has watched the progress of Association Football in Scotland can for a moment deny the fact that the Challenge Cup has been the chief factor in assuring its popularity and rapid development all over the Western District of Scotland, and when its original promoters inaugurated the competition, it was done with the honest conviction of spreading a knowledge of the Association rules, together with generating a spirit of friendly rivalry amongst clubs.