The practice my coach gave me consisted in running the length of the field three or four times, passing the ball back and forth as we went. His instructions with regard to the game were equally simple. To keep in proper position I had only to watch my Merton _vis-à-vis_ and take a place symmetrical with his. When the enemy heeled the ball out of the "scrummage" to their quarter-back, putting us for the moment on the defensive, I was to watch my man, and, if the ball was passed to him, to tackle him. If he passed it before I could tackle him I was still to follow him, leaving the man who took the ball to be watched by my neighbor, in order that I might be on hand if my man received it again. An American back, when his side is on the defensive, is expected to keep his eye on his _vis-à-vis_ while the ball is being snapped back; but his main duty is to follow the ball. An English back under similar circumstances is expected only to follow his man. If our side happened to heel out the ball from the scrum and one of our three-quarters began to run with it, we were on the offensive, and the other three-quarters and I were to follow at his heels, so that when he was about to be tackled--"collared," the English say--he could pass it on to us. There is, as I have said, no such thing as combined "interference" among the backs. A player who gets between the man with the ball and the enemy's goal is rankly off-side. It is not to be understood that the captain coached all this information into me. I had to buttonhole him and pump it out word by word. Coaching of any sort is all but unknown on English football fields. What there is of the game is learned at school--or in the nursery! [Illustration: AN ENGLISH RUGBY LINE-UP To the left of the scrum, two half backs and six three-quarter backs face each other in pairs] When the opposing teams scattered over the field for the kick-off, I noticed with satisfaction that there was not a spectator on the grounds to embarrass me. It is so in almost all English college games--the fellows are more than likely to have sports of their own on, and anyway, what is the use in hanging round the fields where other fellows are having all the fun?