Book of football

THE OBJECT OF THE GAME 155
that where forwards are charged they are more or less
on the move, and thus better able to meet the charge.
shoulder to shoulder, and to give the charger good
value for his money. Whereas in the case of the
dropping or bouncing ball with which halfs and backs
have so constantly to deal, they are more or less
stationary at the moment of impact. Thus, for the
persons of denizens of the half-back line or the area
of the full backs, I like to have very solid, stockily-built
fellows, who not only can put up with a lot of barging
into, but also look as if they can stand it, and come
up smiling for the next round. This is, of course,
truer of the backs than the half-backs, and I regard
men like C. C. Page, Ducat of Woolwich Arsenal, and
P. R.
May as the very men for the position, though
Ducat has won his spurs in the football world at half-
back.
Probably no pair of full-backs took their share of
charging, or for that matter gave it, with more complete
serenity than the brothers A. M. and P. M. Walters of
Charterhouse, and, of course, the Corinthians. They
were the
beau-ideal
of what a pair of backs should be,
and men who have seen practically every famous pair
assure me their like has never since been seen. For
one thing, nothing like their standard of complete
understanding has been attained by any other pair;
and understanding is everything in the success of a
full-back pair, as was seen every time the trick of
playing the " one-back game," in order to derange the
mechanism of the attacking side through the medium
of the off-side rule, was tried.
This used to be a favourite
ruse de gueyye
of some
professional sides—no decent set of amateurs was ever
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