Football

S2
.4SSOCIATIOAr FOOTFALL.
and a modification of the strict off-side rule so as to snake
any one on side provided the goalkeeper alone was between
them and the opposite goal, also proposed by Sheffield,
was equally unsuccessful. Though the proposition of the
Sheffield club just mentioned, which practically did away
with on side altogether, was not in sympathy with the
feelings of the majority of the clubs which at that time
constituted the Football Association, it none the less for
a long time retained its popularity with those who were
responsible for the management of the Sheffield Association.
For nearly ten winters, indeed, it formed perhaps the only
important point of divergence between the rules of the
parent society and the oldest, as well as the most loyal,
of its affiliated Associations. The matches between London
and Sheffield were originally played twice during the season,
in London and Sheffield, according to the respective rules
in force in each district. Subsequently, though, the fixtures
became so popular, that it was deemed advisable to add
still a third contest of a mixed character, in one half of
which London rules—i.e. those of the Football Association
—governed the play, and the other conducted in accordance
with the code of the Sheffield Association. Such an anoma-
lous and unsatisfactory arrangement one would have thought
could only have been of brief duration. Still, the Sheffield
players were not easily persuaded to yield the few points in
which their game differed from that of the central and
administrative body of Association football. It was not, in
fact, till the year 1876 that the rules of the Sheffield Asso-
ciation were brought into complete agreement with those
of the original foundation, and the last obstacle in the way
of a universal code for the regulation of Association players
was removed.
It must not be assumed, though, that the committee of