The "Combination" Game

There are two phrases employed in describing then and now the way, in which association football was played for the two and half decades from its inception in 1863, both causing little clarification and much confusion. They are "scientific" and "combination". In fact "scientific" was initially a cricket and then a rugby-football term, the former from 1839, the latter from 1862 and should be considered a synonym for "systematic" with "combination" a development not of but from it. Although here comes the rub. Some consider "combination" to be the same as an early passing-game with the argument that the deliberate rather than accidental transference of a ball between two players is just that, a pass. Others seek to make the distinction between terms we use to this day, the pass against the knock-off or knock-down. It is, to use a rugby analogy, the equivalent of the difference between in a ruck and a maul, a scrimmage in old footballing terms, the ball-carrier going to ground, and in a rehearsed, controlled, a "scientific"  movement knocking off by pushing the ball back through the feet of his fellow forwards, his backer-uppers, to in a combinational way his scrum-half and the scrum-half himself, who picks up and "passes" over distance to his three-quarters.  In a modern game all three phases seem automatic in their linkage but each is a tactic, unlikely to have been developed simultaneously but consecutively, and only then sequenced.

I am, for what it is worth, in the latter camp. I believe that in the late 1860s some teams figured out or learned by observation that backing up, even if it were for the accidental knock-off, worked and a very few took it a stage further, with scrimmage thought to be imminent, of deliberate turn and knocking-off to the backer-upper.  In fact one of that "few", the Royal Engineers, known for their "combination", may even have designated a backer-upper. Detail of how formation-ally teams took the field prior to 1870 is very, very thin but with the first playing of the 1872 FA Final that began to change. The eventual winners, Wanderers, had a goal-keeper, a single full-back, a single half-back and eight forwards, just as England had in the last of the "unofficial" internationals of a month earlier. Punts were probable, knock-offs possible but passing unlikely. However, Royal Engineers had a goalkeeper, two full-backs, a single half-back and seven forwards. It meant the punt was still there, in defence there could now be knock-offs, perhaps slightly longer passes between full-backs, even with the goal-keeper, who, of course, then was an out-field player, and the half-back. Moreover, there was also the possibility that the same half-back in attack could the backer-upper, to whichever of the forwards was on the rampage, and also a "scrum-half", a distributor, if required. Indeed the Engineers team as set-up looks more rugby-inspired than football - seven forwards, a scrum- cum fly-half, two centres and a full-back.

Which leads to the second, and still more important, game that took place that same year. The date was St. Andrew's Day, 30th November. The place was the West of Scotland Cricket Ground. The game was the first ever "official" international, between Scotland and England, ultimately a 0-0 draw but one of huge import. The reason was the formation that Scotland adopted. It was a Box-Four, two full-backs and two half-back, in front of the goalkeeper and captain, Robert Gardner, and behind just six forwards, a 2-2-6. It provided two backer-uppers or made possible both a "scrum-half" and a separate "centre" and it now not just made "combination" possible but necessary. Effective expansion of the Box-Four in attack and contraction in defence required direction from the captain, first, and cooperation, by all, second. However, from where that innovation came is hard to establish. Firstly Queen's Park, the provider of all the players in Scotland team had had until then virtually no opposition for the simple reason no other association football team existed North of the Border. Perhaps its internal games were played thus but there is no proof. Secondly, it might have adopted the formation from a team or teams Down South. Yet we already know that even the obviously divergent Engineers had not gone that far and the team, South Norwood, for which not one but two post-Queen's Park and now international Scots, the Smith brothers, played, were even in 1874 still using a formation with two half-backs but only a single full-back. Thirdly, there is no obvious comparison with anything in rugby with the only possibility remaining that, whilst it was organisational, tactical, clearly novel, even combinational it was also from interpretation of contemporary reports only knock-down- and not passing-combinational.  That would come later, albeit soon-later, within the decade and I contend, although still in Scotland, from in part another source, shinty, and a very different background, the Vale of Leven.