Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/67

 opposite of selfish, but, at the same time, if he parts with the ball injudiciously and without carefully watching the movement of his own forwards, and weighing the possibilities of his passing in relation to them, his assistance is of a negative character, and, in fact, he has often been of greater service to the opposite side, A well-constituted forward team is indeed the thoroughness of mechanical precision. The attainment of a high standard in this direction is, however, it will be readily understood, only the outcome of careful thought and constant practice. Forwards, however, one and all, should be quick on the ball, as well as with their feet, full of resolution, and with plenty of decision. Modern football does not necessitate the exceptional amount of skill in dribbling which was essential to the attainment of any great reputation thirty years ago. The change in the general character of the game has caused the dribbler pure and simple to become extinct, but still dribbling is necessary to the education of a football player now, though not of paramount importance, as it was then. Nor is the possession of physical force a sine quâ non as it was in the early days of the great football revival. A player, to reach a position of any prominence, must be of good constitution and, withal, have plenty of stamina to enable him to hold his own in face of the extreme pace of a game from start to finish as it is nowadays. What I am trying to point out, though, is that tactical skill has more to do, in the present-day arrangement, with the attainment of success than of old.

Football culture, in fact, now requires perhaps a higher combination of talents; and the scientific tactics of an Association eleven of to-day are only the natural development of thought and experience. The best elevens of late years have emphatically been those who have been managed on a system carefully thought out and the result of wise