Foot-Ball
THERE is no mention of this game before the time of Edward III., when it was very popular, and it has been played more or less ever since. It declined in favour of cricket at one time, but with the last generation of boys it took a place almost equal to cricket, and now it is quite as popular in its season as that sport.
We need not discuss the fortunes of foot-ball. There is no popular game which so differs from itself, so to speak, as this. For some years there were almost as many varieties of the game as there were players. Some Public Schools favoured certain rules which others would not countenance, and it depended upon the taste and fancy of the players as much as the spelling of Sam Weller's name did upon the "fancy of the speller." But an association sprang up in 1863, and called itself the "Foot-ball Association," and took the lead in all Public matches, and with great common sense, we think, permitted a certain latitude of play. The rules are simpler and fewer than those of the "Rugby Union" (the rival of the Association), which, however, carries the general support of the Public Schools, and the latter is the more difficult game to understand (we always played the Rugby game ourselves, and, though rough, it never did us any harm). But Public School play is not always Union play; each school has some trifling difference. At Eton two games are played; but it will be sufficient if we give the rules and show the difference between and the manner of playing the "Association" and the "Union" games. The Association game is the more simple. There are thirteen rules. The goal is formed by two posts, a bar or tape running across the top, not at a distance below, as of old.