Page:Football, The Association Game.djvu/84

 "4. It requires less individual excellence, and equalizes the labour.

"It is, perhaps, superfluous to add, nowadays, when the game is so well known, that neither halves nor full backs should go in for gallery kicking, and least of all the halves. It is far easier, though less effective as a spectacle, to pass a ball back to a fellow-back than to kick it over your own head. It should always be their object to place the ball to the forward who is in the best position for receiving it as conveniently for him to take as possible, that is, where feasible along the ground. To ensure accuracy, all passing by backs and half-backs to forwards should be done with the side of the foot; it looks twice as ugly as with the toe, but it is ten times more effective. Dribbling should never be indulged in beyond what is absolutely necessary; but passing from the half-back to backs, and also between the halves themselves, and between the backs themselves, is often extremely useful Last, but by no means least important, where a half-back finds himself in such a position that he cannot reach the ball, or that it will be more easy for the back to do so, he must invariably keep the man off."

CHAPTER X.

As the goal-keeper represents the last line of defence, it is imperative that he should be a safe man. He should be cool in an emergency, ready witted, with plenty of pluck and unlimited go. Though it is a great advantage for him to be an adept in kicking with either foot, as a general rule he