Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/28

 for Association players in the south at least In the north, Sheffield maintained a code of its own, and some years elapsed before the Sheffield Association gave up its own rules, and thereby gave the parent Association undivided and undisputed control as the legislators of the game.

Meanwhile, in the early part of 1866, a suggestion had been received from the Hon. Secretary of the Sheffield club, that a match should be played between London and Sheffield. The challenge, it is hardly necessary to add, was duly accepted, and the match, the first of any importance under the auspices of the Football Association, took place in Battersea Park in the spring of 1866. The Wanderers, practically a continuation of the Forest Football Club, which changed its name in 1863, after four years of unbroken success; Barnes, Crystal Palace, and N.N.'s were then the backbone of the Association game in the neighbourhood of London. These four clubs, indeed, between them furnished the eleven which represented London, As the names may be of interest, the Wanderers supplied four—C. W. Alcock, R, D. Elphinstone, Quintin Hogg, and J. A. Boyson; Barnes three—J. K. Barnes, R. G. Graham, and R. W. Willis; the N.N.'s the same number in A. J. Baker, A. Pember, and C. M. Tebbut; while the eleventh place, and that one the most important, the responsible position of goal-keeper, was filled by a member of the Crystal Palace club, Alec Morten, who for some years, veteran though he was, had no superior between the posts.

Mr, E. C. Morley, the first Hon, Secretary, in the interim had been replaced by another member of the Barnes club, in Mr. R. W. Willis, who in turn gave way to still a third representative of Barnes in the person of Mr. R. G. Graham.