In days long ago when Association football players wore beards and breeches, instead of being clean shaven and donning "shorts" or running pants, newspapers, as a whole, took very little notice of matches. The reports were brief, and there were none of the personal paragraphs, garrulous items, and more or less sensational news which are now part not only of weekly periodicals, but of morning and evening newspapers.

While I was in Nottingham Mr. A.G. Hines, now a vice president of the Football Association, was the honorary secretary of a club then known as Notts Olympic. This was often described as the "twist hands' club." A "twist hand" is an operative in the manufacture of lace. Wherever the Olympic played on a Saturday Mr. Hines would bring to the office of the Daily Guardian on Sunday night a carefully-written account of the match and ask for its insertion in Monday's issue.

He did all this work and went to so much trouble without any fee or reward beyond seeing that the Olympic obtained publicity. Nor was he quite alone in his altruism. The honorary secretary of this day is of another variety, as the botanists say, for he often looks to newspapers to compensate him for the time that he gives to football.

Nothing that I know so powerfully illustrates the great change that has taken place in the game. At one time the secretary of an ordinary club would supply gratis all information that he could to get his club's doings into print; now he has to be paid.

When first I attended football matches as a reporter it was necessary to walk about the ground, to keep outside the touchlines, of course, or to stand behind the goal-posts, if the custodian was a genial man and free from nerves and small irritabilities.

I have seen even a modern goalkeeper, who dwells in a nice little sanctum of his own, with the Goalkeepers' Preservation Act to protect him, so worried that he would, when play was far away, pick up tiny stones, little bits of cinder, and little tufts of grass and put them through the meshes of the net-all signs of nervousness.

In the olden times the goalkeeper was generally self-possessed. He had to be, because he was so often bundled head over heels by one forward while another was making a shot.

But up and down the touch-line and round about the goals the reporter had to wander like a restless spirit. He was as much exposed to the weather as the players, but there was rarely any account to do for an evening newspaper.

At last some wooden benches or desks were put up near the middle of the field, and bordering on the touch-line. There was no shelter, and when the day of telegraphing reports arrived the telegraphic forms were often wet through, and sometimes blown away.

Where the first Press box was built I cannot say, but when one secretary was asked for such accommodation his reply was: "Dear me! I suppose you would like nicely glazed windows, an armchair, a foot-warmer, a cigar, and a glass of whisky at intervals." The game was gaining adherents, "gates" were growing, and secretaries were beginning to show what they thought was independence and hauteur. Really it was rudeness. Reporters in those early days often suffered from severe colds and contracted rheumatism. Many a time have I left a match with clothes saturated by rain and with marrow chilled.