Great was the excitement in the town when the _Evening Star_ brought out a special edition with the news that the Rovers had to play Duckingfield Britannia in the fourth round of the Cup. Duckingfield was the center of a mining district about fifteen miles away, and the rivalry between the Britannia and the Rovers was terrific. In the mind of any true Blackhamptonian there was never any question as to their respective merits. The Rovers had forgotten more about football than the Britannia would ever know. One was quite an upstart club; the other, as all the world knew, went back into the primal dawn of football history. The Rovers practiced the science and culture of the game; the Britannia relied on brute force and adjectival ignorance. Still, Duckingfield Britannia were doughty foes, and although the Rovers had no need to fear anyone, the feeling at the Crown and Cushion was that they rather wished they had not to play them. The truth was, in their battles with these upstarts, the Rovers never seemed able to live up to their reputation. Whether they met at Duckingfield or at Blackhampton, and in no matter what circumstances, the Rovers invariably got the worst of the deal. This was odd, because the Rovers were much the superior team in every way, always had been, always would be. They didn't know how to play football at Duckingfield, whereas Blackhampton was the home of the game. Moreover, there was one historic meeting between these neighbors which was always a _causa foederis_ at any gathering of their partisans. It was a certain match on neutral ground in which they met in the semi-final for the Cup, when to the utter confusion and bewilderment of all the best judges, the Rovers, who in their own opinion had really won the Cup already, were beaten four goals to nothing. It is true that a snowstorm raged throughout the match, and to this fact the defeat of the Rovers was always ascribed by the lovers of pure football. It could never be accounted for on any other hypothesis. No comparison of the real merits of the teams was possible, any more than it was possible to compare the towns whence they sprang. You could not mention a town like Duckingfield in the same breath as a town like Blackhampton; to speak of the Britannia being the equal of the Rovers merely betrayed a fundamental ignorance of what you were talking about.