American football . s. This, tothe Englishman, would be the most de-testable kind of off-side play, and nottolerated for an instant upon any fieldin the United Kingdom. 16 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. Even into this the Americans did notplunge suddenly, but rather little by lit-tle they stepped in, until it was neces-sary to do one of two things — eitherlegalize what was being tacitly consent-ed to, or penalize it heavily. The re-sult was that it was legalized. Withthis concession, though, there went acertain condition which gained a meas-ure of confidence for the new ruHng. To understand just how this
American football . s. This, tothe Englishman, would be the most de-testable kind of off-side play, and nottolerated for an instant upon any fieldin the United Kingdom. 16 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. Even into this the Americans did notplunge suddenly, but rather little by lit-tle they stepped in, until it was neces-sary to do one of two things — eitherlegalize what was being tacitly consent-ed to, or penalize it heavily. The re-sult was that it was legalized. Withthis concession, though, there went acertain condition which gained a meas-ure of confidence for the new ruHng. To understand just how this state ofaffairs above mentioned came about oneshould know that, in the attempt toblock opponents when the quarter-backwas receiving and passing the ball, theforwards fell into the habit of extend-ing their arms horizontally from theshoulder, as by this method each mancould cover more space. For a numberof years this went on without detrimentto the sport in any way,- but after atime there was more or less complaint. E. L. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN RUGBY. 17 of holding in the Hne, and it was ruledthat a man must not change his positionafter the ball was snapped, nor bend hisarms about an opponent at such a the referee (for at thisstage of the game there was no umpire)could not watch the ball and the play-ers with sufficient care to enforce thisruling, and the temper of the playerssuffered accordingly. It is always thecase when a rule is not enforced un-flinchingly, no matter from what cause,that both sides suffer, and the tendencyalways is towards devising additional in-fringements. The additional infringe-ment in this instance was even worsethan could have been foreseen ; for, notcontent with simply blocking or evenholding an opponent until the quartershould have passed the ball in safety,the players in the forward line saw anopportunity for going a step farther,2 l8 AMERICAN FOOTBALL. and actually began the practice of seiz-ing an opponent long af
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Keywords: ., bookauthorcampwalt, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookyear1894
