It is no doubt in some sense owing to the promptings of this feeling that we find, about thirty years ago, football-playing being revived fitfully at the Universities, and matches beginning to be played between teams of men in London and the provinces, and with still greater frequency as years went by. In 1857 the Sheffield Club (Association) was founded, and in 1858 the great metropolitan Rugby Union Club, Blackheath, was established, chiefly by some old pupils of Blackheath School. About 1861 or 1862 a large number of clubs playing the dribbling game sprang up in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, which has since remained a most flourishing local centre for that game; while in London two of the first clubs who started the dribbling game were the Crystal Palace, in 1861, and the Barnes Club, in 1862. Indeed, at this time the number and organization of the dribbling clubs, both in London and the provinces, was superior to those of the advocates of the running and tackling game. As far as we are aware, the Blackheath Club was the only regularly organized club in the metropolis until the great rival club at Richmond came into existence, in 1862. It is in 1863 that the history of football organization really commences. In the autumn of that year a conference met for the purpose of attempting to reduce to a uniform code the various conflicting rules which were adopted by the different clubs. It was the intention of the promoters of the meeting to unite all those who played football under any rules into a united body; and the rules agreed upon at the first meeting were a fair and liberal attempt to bring about what can hardly be considered anything but an impossible task, viz., a fusion of Rugby Union and Association rules. Indeed, the original rules, framed by the promoters of the parent Association, included running with the ball under certain restrictions, as well as hacking and tripping. In the meantime, however, another conference of members of the public schools had been arranging rules at Cambridge, where the dribbling game had been played on Parker’s Piece as early as 1855. Eventually, a meeting was arranged between delegates of the Cambridge and London conferences; and between them a set of rules was agreed to which excluded all running with the ball, and all tackling, hacking, or tripping. Thus started in 1863 the Football Association; and, save that in 1867 the strict off-side rule, which was at first insisted upon, was expunged for the present modified rule, which gives rise to so many disputes, there have been few substantial alterations in the rules up to the present day, though many changes in the manner of playing. After this alteration the players from Westminster and Charterhouse Schools joined the Association ranks; and in 1870 the sixteen clubs which formed the Sheffield Association abandoned their own rules in favour of those of the Association, which has from that day exercised paramount authority