Word: players
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...near the net, and when the Englishmen really set themselves to play (that is in the second match, not the first), they did what they pleased in the long stretch of court, left absolutely undefended. It is all well enough to oppose the net game, properly so called, to players who are content with 'lobbing,' or an occasional mild 'liner,' but to play this game opposite men who send their returns in like the proverbial lightening, is simple suicide." An English correspondent has recently written a letter in which he comments on these two styles of play. He speaks...
...word on the 'double game' and I an done. The style here has to be completely changed in matches between good players. Against poor or even medium players, the near-net game is apt to pay very well, but against first-class exponents of the game it is simple suicide. Each player should stand on the service line (excepting the server, of course, and he gets up as soon as possible) and if they are up to the mark nothing except a smash will get past them. This is always done in England, and even allowing for the difference...
...following article, taken from the London Globe, gives an interesting account of the old English foot-ball player and the roughness of the game then played : "The old foot-ball player, although by no means of necessity an old man, is rather a melancholy spectacle, looked at from his own point of view. He haunts the scenes of his past exploits in the same enthusiastic, but saddened and tame, manner in which the retred tallow chandler of old story haunted New-gate-street on melting days, and imbued with very much the same feelings. He feels amply qualified to join...
...days of "hacking," and scenes which were frequent enough then, nay, which were almost inevitable, would not be tolerated now in the rowdiest of grounds. It was then by no means an uncommon sight to see the ball flying away in one part of the field, while the forward players were crowded together in a heap hacking at each others' shins like fiends ; it was by no means rare to see a man rushing at full pace with the ball toward the enemy's goal-ling, while a back-player, instead of seizing him below the waist and throwing...
...these changes the "old" foot-ball player has seen, and, whatever sneaking fondness he may have for the game as played in his day, he is ready to acknowledge that it is played more scientifically now. But he will tell us that the game is more of a business than...