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ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL.

Wanderers, Westminster School, West Brompton College, and Worlabye House (Roehampton).

The wants, too, of the Association were evidently of the smallest, as at the general meeting held on February 26, 1868, it was deemed expedient to institute an annual subscription of five shillings, and a record on the minutes of that same meeting is not without significance, containing as it does the announcement that there were no funds in hand, and no balance-sheet was read.

Still, by this time the Association had become firmly established, and by the spring of 1870 it was already commencing to develop its resources. The month of February in that year had seen the retirement of Mr. R. G. Graham from the position of Hon. Secretary, and the election in his stead of Mr. C. W. Alcock, who was subsequently replaced by Mr. F. J. Wall, the present secretary. It was just about this period, too, that the Sheffield Association decided to assimilate its rules to those of the parent society—the only step required to realize the long-expected hope of one code of rules acknowledged by Association players throughout the kingdom. In the first half of the seventies, indeed, the Association was making history in bounds.

Another important event in the annals of the Association was foreshadowed during the summer of 187 1. At a meeting of the committee, held on July 20, in that year, it was resolved, "That it is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association, for which all clubs should be invited to compete." The idea was received with general favour; and at a subsequent meeting, held on October 16, 1871, attended by, in addition to the committee, representatives of the Royal Engineers, Barnes, Wanderers, Harrow Chequers, Clapham Rovers, Hampstead Heathens, Civil Service, Crystal Palace, Upton