Football

16
ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL.
Wanderers, Westminster School, lVest Brompton College,
and Worlabye House (Roehampton).
The wants, too, of the Association were evidently of the
smallest, as at the general meeting held on February
26,
1868, it was deemed expedient to institute an annual sub-
scription of five shillings, and a record on the minutes of
that same meeting is not without significance, containing as
it does the announcement that there were no funds in hand,
and no balance-sheet was read.
Still, by this time the Association had become firmly
established, and by the spring of 1870 it was already com-
mencing to develop its resources. The month of February
in that year had seen the retirement of Mr. R. G. Graham
from the position of Hon. Secretary, and the election in his
stead of Mr. C. W. Alcock, who was subsequently replaced
by Mr. F. J. Wall, the present secretary. It was just about
this period, too, that the Sheffield Association decided to
assimilate its rules to those of the parent society—the only
step required to realize the long-expected hope of one code
of rules acknowledged by Association players throughout
the kingdom. In the first half of the seventies, indeed, the
Association was making history in bounds.
Another important event in the annals of the Associa-
tion was foreshadowed during the summer of 1871. At a
meeting of the committee, held on July
20,
in that year, it
was resolved, " That it is desirable that a Challenge Cup
should be established in connection with the Association,
for which all clubs should be invited to compete." The
idea was received with general favour; and at a subsequent
meeting, held on October 16, 1871, attended by, in addition
to the committee, representatives of the Royal Engineers,
Barnes, Wanderers, Harrow Chequers, Clapham Rovers,
Hampstead Heathens, Civil Service, Crystal Palace, Upton