Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/45

 Cup, with a glorious uncertainty to all the clubs concerned. No history of Association football would be complete if full justice were not done to the great influence of the League, and the hundreds of kindred combinations founded on the same lines and carried on with such remarkable success all over the country.

Another movement which has done much to consolidate the Association game was the institution of the Amateur Cup competition. For reasons best known to themselves, a section of the more influential of the southern amateur teams, notably the Old Boys' clubs, have latterly held aloof from the competition. One would have thought, in the interests of the game, they would have been the most keen to encourage. Still, there are signs that the Amateur Cup may yet thoroughly fulfil its mission, and the entries during the last two or three years have shown a great improvement in quality as well as quantity. The policy of the F. A. in instituting international matches for amateurs with the other European nations will, too, undoubtedly lead to the development and consolidation of amateur football.

CHAPTER IV. the requirements necessary to attain excellence on the football field are in the main precisely the same to-day as they, were twenty years ago, the whole character of the game is as different as the old style of the Rugby game,