Football Statistics :: Football History

Part 12 of the History of Football

1875-76

With time comes change, Whereas formerly the Schools could usually defeat or at least provide the stiffest opposition for teams of old boys or the clubs by reason of their better physical condition, their abilities, and the constant practice of football, by 1875/76 the club-men were fitter and faster than their predecessors had been, and they could add to this condition something which the schoolboys, as a rule, lacked -- weight. Some schools still could and did take on the elders, but the days when the boys taught the men were slipping into the past.

The Association game was now making better progress in popularity as the clubs realised the value of the rules and regulations of The Football Association. Those that did not accept the code at once in its entirety, modified it to their own fancy, but even the modifiers, after due trial and consideration, often preferred, at the last, to make the rules of the London association their own.

The increase in the number of matches between scratch teams bearing euphemistically impudent labels such as "England v Scotland", and matches between sides purporting to be representative of this or that country, or association, or city, or county, spread like a rash in 1875/76. For all that football had progressed from the dreams of boys to the deeds of men, there was still this childish, fourth-form attachment to divide players into groups such as "Blue Eyes v Brown" football, this puerile exercise probably did not lasting harm. Unfortunately there were occasions when the clubs had to cancel matches or turn out a weak side because their best men had been taken away from them.

The game of football under whatever code it is played, is always likely to produce injuries in the form of knocks and bruises; it has always been a possibility, happily of the remoter kind, that a player may suffer broken bones or other serious disablement. As in almost every field of human activity there was always the risk of accidental death. Although since football had been organised under proper rules, the player had the protection of those regulations, and despite the precautions that players took, accidents happened. But because of the good sense of the players under the protection of the rules, considering the number of people involved in matches, serious injuries were not as frequent as football's detractors sometimes made out. Men played regularly through season after season with nothing worse than a bruise here and there. But bad accidents, when they occurred, made grisly reading, and prompted the opponents of football to cry out against its apparent brutality, even though some of the worse accidents did not really come about solely by football.

Two shocking deaths happened this season. A young man of the Broomhall club in Sheffield, while running to retrieve the ball, fell 30 feet to his death over the edge of a quarry on an unprotected side of the football ground; at Derby a player, said to be an experienced footballer, fell after a heavy charge and fatally broke his neck.

Some players belonged to benevolent societies which were being formed around this time to provide funds for men whose injuries prevented them working. One of the best-known was the Sheffield Football Players Accident Society. This organisation was not self-supporting, but derived the greater part of its income from donations, theatrical charity performances, and from collections at football grounds.

When the practice of "heading" the ball was first seen in London after its introduction from the North, it caused howls of mirth. The Southerners still considered it ludicrous and "not football" but by now they had to admit that the ability to head a ball was a very useful skill. "Middling" the ball from the wings into the goal mouth proved a clever move this season. There seemed to be very few backs around who knew how to deal with it.

Some of the Sheffield players were now using the "screw-shot" bending the ball in its flight, and this caused havoc for defenders. The leading exponent of this trick, Billy Mosforth, used it to score goals from "impossible" angles.