A VERY useful rule forbids an historian to deal with the matters of his own day; and in obedience to this rule we have decided not to discuss the developments, changes, and general progress of modern football since the institution of the governing bodies of the two games—Association and Rugby Union—placed each of them upon a firm basis as a national sport. The only task, therefore, left to us before we conclude our welcome labours, is to sketch in outline the steps which led to the re-establishment of football in its old position as the chief of the winter sports of England.
Between thirty and forty years ago began the first movement in England of the great athletic revival, which, after gradually spreading until it covered the whole of the United Kingdom, is still rolling like a wave over the colonies and all foreign countries where the English tongue is spoken. It will not be too much for us to say, that the great athletic movement, which is still too near for us to be able to calculate its full effects with certainty, has worked a greater revolution in English character and habits than any movement, religious or secular, which has passed over the country since the time of the Puritans. Of that great athletic movement the history has yet to be written; but it would hardly be wise to attempt to touch it in the present work. Suffice it to say, that the physical causes of the desire for hard exercise which has seized upon men are apparent enough. In modern times, when nearly all the world is given up to the feverish bustle and worry of money-making, the body of a young and lusty man, by a natural reaction, craves for a muscular exercise, which may give a relief to the nerves and the brain. For the performance of this function it is admitted that there is no game in the world like football. The student at the University, and the young man who is tied to his office-stool throughout all the daylight hours of the winter months, with the solitary boon of a Saturday’s half-holiday, alike find that an hour’s hustle at football sends them home, more tired perhaps, but happier, calmer, and wiser men.
It is no doubt in some sense owing to the promptings of this feeling that we find, about thirty years ago, football-playing being revived fitfully at the Universities, and matches beginning to be played between teams of men in London and the provinces, and with still greater frequency as years went by. In 1857 the Sheffield Club (Association) was founded, and in 1858 the great metropolitan Rugby Union Club, Blackheath, was established, chiefly by some old pupils of Blackheath School. About 1861 or 1862 a large number of clubs playing the dribbling game sprang up in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, which has since remained a most flourishing local centre for that game; while in London two of the first clubs who started the dribbling game were the Crystal Palace, in 1861, and the Barnes Club, in 1862. Indeed, at this time the number and organization of the dribbling clubs, both in London and the provinces, was superior to those of the advocates of the running and tackling game. As far as we are aware, the Blackheath Club was the only regularly organized club in the metropolis until the great rival club at Richmond came into existence, in 1862. It is in 1863 that the history of football organization really commences. In the autumn of that year a conference met for the purpose of attempting to reduce to a uniform code the various conflicting rules which were adopted by the different clubs. It was the intention of the promoters of the meeting to unite all those who played football under any rules into a united body; and the rules agreed upon at the first meeting were a fair and liberal attempt to bring about what can hardly be considered anything but an impossible task, viz., a fusion of Rugby Union and Association rules. Indeed, the original rules, framed by the promoters of the parent Association, included running with the ball under certain restrictions, as well as hacking and tripping. In the meantime, however, another conference of members of the public schools had been arranging rules at Cambridge, where the dribbling game had been played on Parker’s Piece as early as 1855. Eventually, a meeting was arranged between delegates of the Cambridge and London conferences; and between them a set of rules was agreed to which excluded all running with the ball, and all tackling, hacking, or tripping. Thus started in 1863 the Football Association; and, save that in 1867 the strict off-side rule, which was at first insisted upon, was expunged for the present modified rule, which gives rise to so many disputes, there have been few substantial alterations in the rules up to the present day, though many changes in the manner of playing. After this alteration the players from Westminster and Charterhouse Schools joined the Association ranks; and in 1870 the sixteen clubs which formed the Sheffield Association abandoned their own rules in favour of those of the Association, which has from that day exercised paramount authority over all the dribbling clubs of the kingdom. At the present moment the popularity of the Association game, especially in the provinces, is enormous; and if the old governing body can stand firm amidst the troubles which are arising at the present day upon the vexed question of professionalism, its career of prosperity should be a long one.
To return, however, to the history of the running and tackling form of the sport—the “Rugby game,” as it was called even in 1862. When the Association code forbade running with the ball, the Blackheath and Richmond Clubs, and the few other less important and scarcely permanent teams who played the running rules, naturally held aloof from the Associated clubs. In the meantime the number of permanent clubs who played Rugby rules began to multiply greatly. In 1863 the Civil Service Club, under these rules, was formed, and about the same time the Harlequins. In 1865 Ravenscourt Park was founded; in 1866 the Flamingoes in London, and several provincial clubs, including Liverpool; and between this time and 1870 the clubs playing the older game sprang up in large numbers all over the kingdom. Although there was a general similarity in all the rules played by the various clubs who admitted running and tackling into their game, the difficulty of arranging little disputes and differences of practice used to be very great, as all old players who had their day before the foundation of the Rugby Union in 1871 can testify. Disputes of any consequence were avoided by the universal adoption of the rule that every club played its own rules in home matches. It was evident, however, that a system like this could not last amidst the rapid spread of the game through the country, and in the autumn of 1870 negotiations commenced between members of the Blackheath and Richmond Clubs, which ended, in January, 1871, in the foundation of the Rugby Union. It is pleasing to note that the two governing bodies of football have never come into collision since their respective foundations. We venture to express a hope that the footballers of either game will ever continue to look upon skill in the other and rival game with admiration, and not with envy.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.