Word: footing
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...Foot ball, as played by our college elevens, is a very different game from the foot-ball of England. And, in fact, there are two kinds of foot-ball over there. Those who play the Association game think there is nothing like it as a scientific and exciting sport, while the Rugby players are just as devoted to their style of game...
Just at present the Association game as played on the other side is under-going a boom in and around Boston. Not long ago two star players, Priest and Westwood, arrived here from England, and were much disappointed at finding that foot-ball as they know it was almost unknown here. They were professional players in England, and on settling here they conceived the scheme of instructing twenty-two athletes in the fine points of the game and forming two elevens to play matches. No sooner had they started in to develop the game than they found that there...
...long talk with Priest, one of the two English players who arrived here recently, he gave an interesting and intelligent description of the Association game. In the foot-ball of the American colleges the leading feature is running with the ball in the arms. It is just the reverse in the Association game, where it is a foul if any one save the goal keeper touches the ball with the hands or arms. As Priest put it, "No one but the goal keeper must touch the ball, but he must do his very best with head, hands and feet...
...shove him over, but you must not touch him with your hands. And it's a foul, too, if the ball hits your arm below the elbow. The great point about the Association game is that it is not so rough as the Rugby. Of course you cannot play foot-ball without being a bit rough, but it is not nearly so bad as Rugby...
...Three of these sports, namely foot-ball, base-ball and rowing, are liable to abuses which do not attach to the sports themselves so much as to their accompaniments under the present system of intercollegiate competitions. These abuses are extravagant expenditure by and for the ball players and the crews, the interruption of college work which exaggerated interest in the frequent ball matches causes, betting, trickery condoned by a public opinion which demands victory, and the hysterical demonstrations of the college public over successful games. These follies can best be kept in check-they cannot be eradicated-by reducing...