(3) Ernest Needham, Association Football (1901)

Well-directed exercise is the chief factor in training for any sport. Here I might warn against a most common error. Too many youths and men play football to obtain exercise, but this is quite wrong: exercise should, nay, must precede match football, or harm from exposure and over-straining is bound to ensue. Still more, the untrained man blunders about the football field, throwing himself blindly into danger, and proving a frequent source of accident to himself and others. This is so well known to professional players that trainers take charge of first-class men at least a month before their first public appearance of the season. To get into condition at the beginning of the season is hard work, for while resting superfluous fat has accumulated, some muscles of locomotion have become more or less flabby, the circulatory system is torpid, and the chest muscles and organs of respiration are slow in their action. To counteract all this, we must at first have plenty of football practice to bring the muscles into obedience to the will, skipping, walking, and running to strengthen them, sprinting to cultivate speed, and three-quarter and mile runs to tone up heart and lungs. Indian clubs and dumbbells are occasionally used. These various exercises, used lightly at first, and gradually increased under experienced direction, will produce the necessary vigour and hardness, and bring the player into condition for match playing.

When once a man is "fit," and the season has commenced, less practice is needed, one or two days a week at kicking, more walking, and gentle exercise being sufficient to keep him up to the mark. The intelligent trainer now must see that proper food is used to restore exhausted energy, and lay up for future exertions. He knows that excessive wear and tear of the framework fills the body with worn-out substances. The muscles and blood are overcharged with broken-down tissue, almost to the extent of poisoning. Now, then, comes the time for rest and natural recuperation. Nature's efforts to expel foul matter must be assisted by baths, massage, etc., and only sufficient exercise indulged in to prevent any sudden running-down.

It is exceedingly difficult to strike the happy medium between loose training and over training, while of the two perhaps the latter is the greater evil. Certainly the tendency seems to be to over-train, although it means exhausted vitality, staleness and often a complete breakdown. The conditions vary so much that each
individual requires special study from the trainer. I know several prominent players who need little or no training, and if it were forced on them by bad judgment it would almost certainly be disastrous. Some others are so inclined to put on fat that they require almost a jockey's treatment to keep down their weight. The symptoms of staleness are well known even to spectators, and towards the middle and end of the season they are too often seen. Leaden feet, frequent almost causeless tumbles, hesitating kicks, and bad passes are all due to this cause. It is as though the spirited thoroughbred of a few weeks ago had become a broken-down hack. There would be seconds of difference in the performance of a hundred yards at the beginning and end of the season. All this points to the need of care and fine discernment on the part of the man in charge, and the highest credit is due to him if he puts his men on the field able to start well, and with a reserve of stamina enabling them to keep up the pace to a successful finish. Many are the matches that have been won in this way.

The progress of the FA Cup mirrored the changing social progress of football. The decade of dominance by the publicschool teams was ended at the 1881 final between Old Carthusians and Old Etonians. In the following year the Old Etonians were hack again, this time to face Blackburn Rovers. In 1883 another Blackburn team, Olympic, travelled to the London final, taking the troph} north for the first time. Blackburn Olympic, under the control of Jack Hunter, their player-manager, had trained for the final at the booming seaside town of Blackpool and when they stepped out to meet Lord Kinnaird's Old Etonians, the social contrast could not have been greater. Among the Blackburn players were three weavers, a spinner, a dental assistant, a plumber, a cotton operative and an iron-foundry worker. Ha\ing won 1-0 in extra time, the Blackburn team ,vas welcomed home hv huge crowds headed by vet another manifestation of the new working-class social life - a brass band. Blackburn Olympic had approached the game in a most professional manner. Financed hv a local iron-foundry owner, they had trained carefully for a week and had stuck to a suitable diet.

 

(4) John Powles, Iron in the Blood (2005)

At the club (West Ham United) there were changes to the training staff where Sam Wright, who arrived from New Brompton, became head trainer, possibly on the recommendation of Syd King, with Jack Ratcliffe dropping down to his assistant. Jack had previously replaced Tom Robinson for the 1898/99 campaign, after Tom had been the Thames Ironworks trainer from the start and had originally been involved with the Old St Luke's, and later Castle Swifts clubs.

Tom however, despite his lack of direct involvement as trainer for a period of time, often invited a number of players from both the Ironworks and then West Ham United for breakfast at his home in Benledi Street, Poplar. Whether the fare provided was of any benefit when they took the field is not known, but Tom must have been a popular man at the time. He was of course, there or thereabouts at the Ironworks being Tom Robinson involved with the training of cyclists at the Memorial Grounds and with local boxers. After his `break' away from football duties he returned as West Ham United's trainer at the age of 55, in 1904/05, the club's first season at their new Boleyn Ground, Upton Park. He remained with the club until 1912 when in gratitude for his services he was granted a testimonial match against QPR.

Training at the time was not quite what it is today. On the Monday following a match, a good brisk walk would be arranged to tone up the muscles and free up stiff joints. A period would be set aside for running, and sprinting for those who needed to improve their speed over short distances. With their facilities at the new ground the Irons had an indoor centre where skipping and the use of a punchball was considered good exercise and the use of Indian clubs (weights) was essential for strengthening the upper body. Actual training with the ball was not given great priority. It tended to be along the lines of the school playground game of "3 goals and in" with a goalkeeper and three defenders attempting to keep seven attackers at bay! When these activities were over the Irons' players were fortunate that the club had modern plunge baths and were able to receive a body massage to complete their training.

Whilst the club trainer was responsible for the physical fitness of the players, there was very little attention paid to the tactical side of the game. When players took the field for a match, they played in their allotted positions; if things went well and confidence grew teamwork usually fell into place. The responsibilities of the manager/secretary of the time chiefly concerned matters of an administrative nature and had little to do with team training. This is very different from the manager of today, who is a track-suited individual with a profile often as high as his top players and whose duties cover a whole range of functions including coaching, training, team tactics, administration, transfers and liaison with the Board, all conducted under the constant eye of the media. The modern manager is ultimately deemed responsible for his club's results, whether his players perform or not. He cannot be compared to his counterpart of 100 years ago.

 

(5) Charlie Buchan, A Lifetime in Football (1955)

During the summer months, I stayed at work. Then I received notice to report for training at Osborne Road the day after August Bank Holiday. In those days, the season opened on the first Saturday in September, so the whole of August could be devoted to strenuous training. It also ended on the last Saturday in April.

Since then the season has been extended and takes in the last week in August and the first week in May. I think this is one of the mistakes made by the ruling bodies. League football in cricket weather and on bone-hard grounds is neither good for the player nor for the standard of play. It takes too much out of the player, physically and mentally.

That August, in 1910, was my first experience of systematic training. We trained twice each day and trained hard. Much harder than when I came back to London fifteen years later. Then, after the opening month, I went to the ground only once daily.

Though present-day players may have modern appliances to assist them, I still believe the old-timer was physically fitter. Or I should rather say they were a tougher breed of men.

 

 

(6) Frederick Wall, 50 Years of Football (1935)

The average man who takes an interest in football has only the faintest idea how the game began to be played on the other side of the English Channel. The "noxious weed," as some of our Rugby friends have called the Association game, was sown and transplanted in various lands and in several ways.

Boys who have been educated in England have returned to their homes on the Continent with some rudimentary knowledge of the winter revel, and a football under their arm.

One of the Rothschilds sent a gardener to England to study the culture of trees and flowers, and he went back with the knowledge he required and another football under his arm.

Do they not say that the Britons working at the Rio Tinto mines in Southern Spain, and others in a somewhat similar business at Bilbao, set the ball rolling in the peninsula? Boys and men in many countries have scattered the seed and this has mostly fallen on fruitful ground. For many reasons football makes a universal appeal.

The Danes and the Dutch certainly adopted what we call "our game" in 1889. Belgium and Switzerland followed their example about 1895, and Italy began in 1898, when foreigners played in the North-that is, in Piedmont and Lombardy. These "foreigners" were mostly English and Swiss.

An Oxford University team visited Central Europe, Bohemia and Austria about 1875. The game gradually grew in various parts, and English club teams, amateur in particular, made many holiday excursions on the Continent, the Middlesex Wanderers being frequent visitors.

The Football Association and the Corinthians sent teams to these countries, but only Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy had taken up the pastime before this century.