and a modification of the strict off-side rule «o as to make any one on side provided the goal-keeper alone was between them and the opposite goal, also proposed by Sheffield, was equally unsuccessful Though the proposition of the Sheffield club just mentioned, which practically did away with on side altogether, was not in sympathy with the feelings of the majority of the clubs which at that time constituted the Football Association, it none the less for a long time retained its popularity with those who were responsible for the management of the Sheffield Association. For nearly ten winters, indeed, it formed perhaps the only important point of divergence between the rules of the parent society and the oldest, as well as the most loyal, of its affiliated Associations. The matches between London and Sheffield were originally played twice during the season, in London and Sheffield, according to the respective rules in force in each district. Subsequently, though, the fixtures became so popular, that it was deemed advisable to add still a third contest of a mixed character, in one half of which London rules—i.e. those of the Football Association—governed the play, and the other conducted in accordance with the code of the Sheffield Association. Such an anomalous and unsatisfactory arrangement one would have thought could only have been of brief duration. Still, the Sheffield players were not easily persuaded to yield the few points in which their game differed from that of the central and administrative body of Association football. It was not, in fact, till the year 1876 that the rules of the Sheffield Association were brought into complete agreement with those of the original foundation, and the last obstacle in the way of a universal code for the regulation of Association players was removed.
It must not be assumed, though, that the committee of
