ds. Well can I remember witnessing several exciting
tussles on the Queen's Park recreation ground (then the only
meeting-place of the Premier Association Club), between the Vale of
Leven, Hamilton, East Kilbride, Clydesdale, Granville, and 3rd L.R.V.
Since then the spread and popularity of the Association style of play
has been so often written about that it is, so to speak, bound up in the
actual history of the Western District of Scotland. In Edinburgh,
however, the new rules have not made so much headway, the Rugby code
being there as extensively played as of yore. Some advances, however,
have taken place, and the Edinburgh University has an Association team,
and that city several promising clubs, including the Hibernian, Heart of
Midlothian, and St. Bernard, and, in Leith, the Athletic, that made such
a plucky fight with the Queen's Park in a recent cup tie.

No one, except a close observer, can believe the earnestness and
enthusiasm imparted into the game by the formation of young clubs, but
there is one danger which should be avoided. There is such a thing as
overdoing; and, depend upon it, if this is continued, the game will
suffer. To those who love and appreciate everything in season, the
advice I am about to impart will be doubly significant. Football is a
winter game, and while it may be all right to practice in spring and
autumn, the line is bound to be drawn somewhere, and why attempt to
force it down the throats of cricketers, athletes, yachtsmen, and even
lawn-tennis players, in the heart of summer? It must not be forgotten
that some of our best and most influential football clubs have also
cricket clubs and kindred summer recreations attached, and, in the
interests of football, these should be encouraged; and to this end I am
confident my remarks will be treated with some respect. I am also sure
that no one who has taken a deep interest in the game from its
comparative infancy, but can look back with extreme pleasure on its
development, and even go the length of registering a vow that he will do
his utmost to make and uphold it as an honest and manly game, despite
isolated assumptions by a few traducers who question such earnestness,
and I will endeavour to point them out, and draw comparisons.

"What came ye out to see?" might often be asked by an uninterested
spectator who had ventured forth to look at some of the matches. A crowd
of young men pursuing a round object, called a ball, with great
earnest