Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/24

 compelled to secede, and the formal notification of the withdrawal of the Blackheath club was duly made at the following meeting, held at the Freemasons' Tavern on December 8, 1863. The new code adopted on that occasion, while admitting for a try at goal, had disallowed running with the ball and passing, as well as tripping and hacking. The first of these was, of course, the raison d'être of the Rugby game, and the abolition of running would have meant such a radical alteration in the constitution of football, that it can hardly be a surprise to find those who had been educated in the mysteries of that particular kind of game opposed to a sweeping reform, which would have reduced them to the necessity of unlearning the lessons of their boyhood, and schooling themselves in a, to a great extent, different game. The withdrawal of the Blackheath club from the Football Association, December 8, 1863, destroyed the last remaining hope of an assimilation of existing differences. Since that time football players have been divided into two great camps, the one favouring the Association, the other the Rugby game, wide as the poles asunder, though at the same time perfectly friendly rivals.

The code of December 8, 1863, the first issued by the Football Association, will be interesting as indicative of the comparatively slight changes that have been made in the Association game since it first became popular thirty years ago.


 * 1) The maximum length of the ground shall be 200 yards; the maximum breadth shall be 100 yards; the length and breadth shall be marked off with flags; and the goal shall be defined by two upright posts, 8 yards apart, without any tape or bar across them.
 * 2) A toss for goals shall take place, and the game shall be commenced by a place-kick from the centre of the