Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/29

 The success which had attended the meeting between London and Sheffield had contributed in no small measure to increase the popularity of the Association game in London, and the effects were visible in a considerable addition to the number of clubs which declared allegiance to the Association.

The winter of 1867, too, saw another step in the development of the game—the institution of County matches. Middlesex at the time possessed a large proportion of the principal players within the Metropolitan area, and Middlesex was considered strong enough of itself to meet a combination of Surrey and Kent. It was a clever handicap, too; for the match, which took place on November 2, 1867, in Battersea Park, instead of Beaufort House, the use of which had been promised for the purpose, and, for some unaccountable reason or other, withdrawn at the last moment, ended, after a most stubbornly contested game, in a draw without goals to either side. A few months later, Surrey and Kent met at the West London Running Grounds, Brompton, a match which was the forerunner of the Inter-County contests which have been continued with increasing success down to the present date.

Even at this time the sphere of the Association was very limited. On January 1, 1868, only twenty-eight clubs owned its jurisdiction. These were the Amateur Athletic, Barnes, Bramham College (Yorkshire), Charterhouse School, Civil Service, C.CC. (Clapham), Cowley School (Oxford), Crystal Palace, Donington Grammar School (Lincolnshire), Forest School (Walthamstow), Holt (Wilts), Hull College, Hitchin, Kensington School, Leamington College, London Scottish Rifles, London Athletic, Milford College (South Wales), N.N.^s (Kilbum), Royal Engineers (Chatham), Reigate, Sheffield, Totteridge Park (Herts), Upton Park,