In bringing my first edition of Football Reminiscences and Sketches before the public, I do so with a sense of profound regard for the game and its players, and heartfelt gratitude to numerous friends—some of whom, alas! are no more—for advice and assistance. If my readers consider it worthy of one who has devoted a quarter of a century in attaining that experience necessary to criticise the players of the dead past and those of the living present with fidelity, I will have gained something to be remembered, and be amply repaid for what I have done to assist.
