Association Football and How to Play It/Chapter 5

by John Cameron

CHAPTER V.

 

Training.

 

Not the least important thing about football is the matter of training, and nearly every professional club has a trainer, whose business it is not only to get the men fit, but also to keep them so for eight months. I have spoken to a great many whose work it is to get their men into condition and keep them so, and I find that a great many of them have different methods, but nearly all are agreed that every individual must be taken by himself. The majority of people, however, are not paid players, although, as I have already said, these are largely increasing in number, because year by year we see fresh clubs springing up, besides which every member of an ordinary club should be bound to turn out in as perfect a condition as possible. Many make a practice of walking to and from their work, and

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this in itself is excellent. When Montague Holbein was training for his Channel swims he used to make a practice of walking from Catford to the City, and also back, a distance of several miles, and this he found very valuable indeed. In the early days of some of the more important clubs a great many of the players who were professionals went to their ordinary occupations all the week and used to play on a Saturday. When West Bromwich Albion, captained by William Bassett, won the English Cup against Preston North End twenty years ago, the Midlanders were all local lads, whose wages totalled about ten pounds a week, while Preston's pay-list was four times as much. Indeed, men who are regularly at work, especially if it be out of doors and if it taxes one's bodily powers, need very little training. No one ought to play football unless he has a sound constitution, and every organ in the body must be sound, especially the heart and lungs; it is a game for those who are healthy and vigorous. A good plan is to pursue some exercise during the "close" season, i.e., the summer months. Professionals will tell you that August is their hardest month, a large number of them having done nothing since the end of April. Their muscles have become stiff, and they have probably too much surplus flesh. It is very different where professionals take up first class cricket, and trainers have frequently told me that those professionals and amateurs who play the summer game require little or no preparation, and there are many instances of that. Take, for instance, J. Sharp, the

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famous Everton forward. He must be getting on in years, and yet season after season he plays cricket up till the end of August and then turns up at Goodison Park and shows how well he can carry the ball along and whip it into goal, like "a rocket, though not so straight up," as one great judge has written of him. He has been an International this year. He has done splendid work as a cricketer, and is second on the list of Lancashire averages, and may be described as one of the greatest all-round men in England. Now, in his thirty-first year, he has given evidence that if you keep in condition there is no need to worry about special preparation or anything of the sort. Another instance is E. Needham, the captain of Sheffield United, and perhaps the greatest halfback for many years that we have had. He is now thirty-five, and it is a long time since he played his first International match, and long before he was a cricketer he had made his name as a footballer. He is a tireless worker, as anyone who has watched him with the Sheffield United club knows quite well, and long before his age many men have retired from the game. He has the respect and admiration of everyone, and this year he has come to the front as a cricketer and finished at the head of the Derbyshire averages. The result of his always keeping in condition is that he will probably go on for some years as a great cricketer, and as one career is on the wane the other seems to be beginning. He is great indeed at both games. Two other members of the Sheffield United club have also made their presence felt at the summer game. I refer to the two half-backs, the brothers Wilkinson. W. H., the half-back, has never done better as a cricketer. He is a lefthanded batsman, and has made a great advance on anything he has done before, while B. Wilkinson is a player of some repute. Lewis, of Somerset; Makepeace, of Lancashire; Ducat, of Surrey; Iremonger, of Notts; and Leach and Vincett, of Sussex, are all cricketers who have done splendid work during the summer game, and have turned out footballers perfectly fit at the beginning of the season. Indeed, if you play cricket as it should be played it is magnificent training for football. It is hard work getting fit at the start of the season if you have allowed your muscles to become flabby, while there may be no regular circulation of the blood, and generally the muscles that you require are very lethargic, so the difficulty is with those who do not play tennis or cricket, or go in for rowing or swimming or some other form of active exercise during the summer, that they will have to take up some serious practice. Skipping is good, walking and running, especially short sprinting, while punch-ball exercise and dumbbells may be used. There should be moderation in all things, and one must start carefully at first and increase the amount of training until one feels fit. During the season walking and some practice at kicking, with an occasional sprint, are quite enough to keep the player well. It is quite possible that some may suffer from the tremendous amount of energy that they put into their game. I do not think that those who work indoors, such as clerks and others who are called upon to follow indoor occupation, require more than moderate regular exercise. It is very likely that they will have to do their training after or before business hours, and in the evening brisk walking of a couple of miles, with a sprint of 100 yards four or five times, is a good way of getting rid of superfluous fat, and everyone can do this if he likes, though laziness will often lead some to shield themselves under the excuse, "They have no time." One well-known forward, thoroughly conscientious in his training, used to exercise on the Embankment, an excellent plan. Everyone who has to work sitting down should take a morning bath and a little practice with a skipping rope or dumb-bells. The question of diet is of some importance. The game is so strenuous and exhausting that a substantial meal should be taken at least two hours before a match. Many have a beef steak well cooked, with stale bread and vegetables that are well done, always excluding potatoes, and they are able to play right through the game without feeling in any way fatigued. The plainer the food the better. All players are better if they leave alone intoxicants. Needham earnestly advises young players to abstain from them. He says that his experience is that they do not sustain any long continued effort, and their stimulating effect is followed by an invariable depression. From my own observation of players who have abstained and those who have not, I am sure the former have done far better than the latter. Plenty of Internationals and men whose names are household words are total abstainers. I remember Vivian J. Woodward at a dinner in the football season would neither touch intoxicating drinks nor smoke, and England's captain knew what he was about. Kirwan, who captained Ireland; John Goodall, one of the props of the game; John Lewis, the famous penalty king; C. Williams, the Brentford and Tottenham goalkeeper; Ducat, of Woolwich Arsenal, are only a few of the total abstainers, and to them I might add R. M. Hawkes, International and the Luton captain. Indeed, if you want to be of the greatest value to your side you may take it from me that you will do better service by leaving alone all sorts of alcohol, and as to smoking, I am quite sure it is thoroughly bad. I see one picture which explains to me why a great deal of the slackness is creeping over our boys. Again and again I have watched mere lads of fourteen and fifteen, as well as young men of twenty-five, come on to the cricket and football field smoking those horrible, cheap, inferior "fags." How any captain can allow it is a great mystery to me, because if we are training for a match we always say do not smoke a day or two before, because it interferes with one's staying powers. Yet I have seen boys come down to Tottenham smoking all the way from London, all the time they are changing, and actually come from the dressing room with cigarettes, and blow and blow away right to the moment of kicking off. Not content with that, they get through some more cigarettes at the interval, and then wonder why they are tired before the match is over. I have often begged of our youths if they wish to be athletes to remember that it means a certain amount of self-denial, and if they want to do their best for their side they will take this matter seriously to heart and remember that smoking and drinking intoxicants make one unfit rather than otherwise. I do not think that the ordinary player need think about special training, but if, on the other hand, staleness comes to him a complete rest is necessary. When you are overworked at the end of a long season your feet will seem heavy and your kicking will be uncertain, while you will fall and stumble about. This is the time to retire and make room for someone else. With a little care you will gain the necessary freshness, and you will be able to tell when you have got that, because you will be anxious to play the game.