was at least contemporaneous with the first sign of the transition through which football was passing. "What was ten or fifteen years ago the recreation of a few," to quote again from the "Football Annual" of 1878, "has now become the pursuit of thousands— an athletic exercise, carried on under a strict system and, in many cases, by an enforced team of training, almost magnified into a profession." Here was the first note of the transformation the game was slowly undergoing, and the "Annual" plaintively called attention to the old football fogies, as likely to "recall with no small satisfaction the days when football had not grown to be so important as to make umpires necessary, and the 'gate the first subject of consideration.'"
In one respect, however, the "Football Annual" was obliged to admit that the alteration in the method of playing the Association game had been, to use its own words, "of infinite good, in that it had merged the individual in the side." Even then "passing," which had been first introduced in any degree of perfection in the early matches between London and Sheffield, had been slowly but surely ousting the dribbler. Individual excellence ceased to be the aim of the forward, and in its place a captain wisely directed his attention to the inculcation of united action. Mechanical precision was cultivated, and the extent of the combination of a team came to be the measure of its success or failure. Still, it was some time before the players in the south took really kindly to the new style of game. To them football was still an amusement uninfluenced by any considerations of "gate," and with true Conservatism they stuck to the old system, I am bound to admit, long after it had outlived its reputation. Even the example of the Scotch teams which visited London had been thrown away, and the systematic adjustment of the forwards in vogue
