PREFACE.
Since well-nigh everything that there is to be said about the game of football has already appeared in print in various magazine articles and football handbooks, we cannot lay claim to much originality of subject-matter for this work. Nevertheless we have been led to suppose that a comprehensive treatment of the subject on practical lines might still prove of interest to the football world.
We have throughout presupposed on the part of our readers an elementary acquaintance with the game, and have, therefore, not thought it necessary to attempt any definition of the game itself, or of the terms in ordinary use in connection with it.
Keeping strictly in mind the practical nature that this work is intended to bear, we have eschewed all reference to what may fairly be termed the ancient history of the game, no less than all unnecessary comparisons with the sister game of Association, and, after tracing the rise of
