Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/40

, public opinion, one would have thought, would have asserted itself in unmistakable terms in disapproval. The evils which are supposed to follow in the train of Cup competitions, according to those who view them with disfavour, had they been actual, would indeed have long since produced the abolition instead of the increase of Cups all over the kingdom. As a matter of fact, though, the dangers of which these good people prate are more visionary than real; at least, they have not as yet assumed a tangible shape. The opponents of this class of football call to mind Hamlet's familiar expression, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

That Cups give rise to more than ordinary interest is a practical truth of which those who assisted in the institution of the original trophy have had abundant and increasing evidence year after year. It is only the excessive multiplication of Cups which seems to have produced any general feeling of dissatisfaction. The fear of inordinate betting, which it was predicted would inevitably follow the establishment of such competitions, has, as far as a lengthy and intimate knowledge of the working of one of the most important of them gives any weight, not by any means been realized. Nor has there been shown to have been any reason for the assumption that participation in a Cup competition would tend ipso facto to deaden the sensibilities or susceptibilities of either the managers of clubs or the players. So far at least as the experience of over thirty years goes, the trial of the Football Association Cup has been a complete refutation of the arguments of those who were opposed to its inception from the reasons referred to. The disadvantages have been few; the advantages, on the other hand, many and undeniable. No one, of course, will deny that, were the supervision lax, the outcome of the keen rivalry engen-