Now, your footballers go into training for their matches, wear shin-guards to save their legs, and with all their skill have taken all the rough and tumble fun out of the game.' With these sentiments we can so far agree as to say that the pleasure of football-playing certainly does not come from the skill alone, but quite as much from the rough and tumble 'friendly fight' character of the game, which is one of the arguments which the Rugby Unionists use to exalt their game at the expense of the other; but we can hardly agree that there is not plenty of rough and tumble in the Association game with all its present elaboration of skill and tactics.

In the early days of Association matches and 'Cup Ties,' the famous Wanderers Club was certainly the foremost organisation of the time. The 'Cup Ties' were started in 1872, and during the first seven years the Wanderers were declared the winners five times. In 1878 the club, having won the cup three years in succession, became absolutely entitled to it, but they gave the trophy back to the Football Association upon the condition that it should never be won outright. During this period London, Sheffield, and the Universities were the only important centres of activity in the game, although the Royal Engineers, who won the cup in 1875, could always put a strong eleven into the field, and the Shropshire Wanderers made a brilliant and meteoric appearance for a year or two. From about 1875 to 1883 the Etonians were at their zenith, and during the whole of this period could turn out a very formidable team. They were the winners of the cup in 1879 and 1882, and the 'runners up' in 1875, 1876, 1881, and 1883. The Wanderers were never a large club, but their early success attracted many brilliant players from all quarters into their ranks, and they were thus enabled to maintain their supremacy.

About 1876 or 1877, however, the 'old school clubs' began to spring up in great numbers, and it became the prevailing fashion for a player when he left his school or University to devote himself entirely to his 'old boys' club. This movement undoubtedly led to the downfall of the Wanderers, who after winning the cup for the third time in succession in 1878, suddenly ceased to be. In the first round of the Cup Ties of 1876 they met the Old Etonians, who had been reinforced by the Old Wanderer as well as Old Etonian, the Hon. A. F. Kinnaird (now Lord Kinnaird). The Etonians won, and the Wanderers, who had made their reputation entirely from cup ties, forthwith collapsed. From henceforth the old school clubs occupied the chief position for several years, and the final tie of the cup, in 1881, was fought out between the Old Carthusians and the Old Etonians, the former proving the winners. By this time, however, an entirely new movement was overspreading the country. Until about 1875 there was practically no Association football in the provinces except at Sheffield. About 1875 the provincial movement began, and the game was taken up in Lancashire, Staffordshire, and the whole of the Midlands by all classes of players, but chiefly by the mechanics and artisans.

The rapidity with which the movement spread was little short of marvellous. In 1874, only one club played Association football in Birmingham. In 1876, an association of over twenty clubs was formed in the district. The rapidity with which the new class of players acquired their skill was equally remarkable. In 1877 the new Birmingham Association met London at the Oval, and were beaten by 11 goals to nil. Two years later, at the same place, Birmingham beat London by two goals to nothing. In Lancashire the progress was equally rapid. To the unbounded surprise of most footballers, in 1878 the Darwen Club played two drawn games with the Old Etonians in a cup tie before they were finally beaten. So many provincial clubs had joined the Association by this year, that in 1879 a new system of playing the cup ties was introduced, the clubs being divided into districts for all the preliminary rounds. It was not for some years, however, that the provincial clubs could secure the cup. In 1882, the Blackburn Rovers were only beaten by one goal in the final tie by the Old Etonians; and in the following year another Blackburn club, the Olympic, beat the Etonians by a similar score. Since then the cup has always fallen to a provincial club.

For the next three years the Blackburn Rovers won in succession, twice beating in the final tie the Scottish Queen's Park Club, and once the West Bromwich Albion team. Since then the Association Cup has always been won by one of the numerous professional clubs from the provinces. Indeed, to-day the professional clubs, with their highly paid and highly trained players, are considerably superior to the amateur teams of the South. One amateur club, the Corinthians, at times puts a wonderful eleven into the field, but this is rather a picked team than a veritable club, as it has no local habitation, and merely plays matches from time to time with a team selected from the best old school clubs and from the Universities. The club is managed by Mr. N. L. Jackson, who was formerly the secretary of the London Football Association, and the performances of the Corinthians upon their tours are watched with the keenest interest, as the club has upon its roll all the crack players of the South. But with the exception of the Corinthians and the Universities, who never enter for the Association Cup ties, there are now no purely amateur clubs who have a chance in the cup ties with the crack professional teams; and in consequence of complaints being made that the Football Association existed mainly for the benefit of professionals, the Association determined to start Amateur Cup ties.

The first competition for this was played in the season 1893-4, and was won by the Old Carthusians.

So great is the interest shown in the progress of the cup tie competitions that it may almost be said that every other match is dwarfed in comparison. Certainly there is far less interest in the international matches than in the final tie for the cup, and even North v. South or Gentlemen v. Players excited comparatively but a languid interest. For better or for worse cups and cup ties are the life and soul of the Association game. However, the gaining of a place in the international eleven is still the highest honour open to the individual player. The English team is selected by that old and able body the Football Association, which has always shown itself capable of dealing with every problem of Association football which has arisen, and which has left no step undone to encourage the game in all parts of the kingdom. For more than twenty years the Old Harrovian, Mr. C. W. Alcock, has been the secretary of the Football Association, and the spread and popularity of the game during his term of office is the best testimonial that can, be given to his work.