Mr. Sutcliffe believes that the problem of the "stopper" centre half will be solved by a team that can plan an attack by their forwards that will beat the defence by superior tactics, and not by any legislative change.
It is on these lines that Mr. Lock-
[ton is working in producing his new plan for the improvement of the game.
He thinks that the public have got tired, in particular, of the result of the stopper's play seen in the big gaps left in the middle of the field and the few pleasing movements. His plan is that the teams should line up in this order: goalkeeper; three backs; three half-backs and four forwards.
The first obvious difference between this arrangement and the told one is that there is no centre-forward, as such, but there would be two players to take his place. They might be called right-centre and left-centre forwards. The centre-half would return to the old job of attacking, be the tactician of the team, and, usually, the captain. Attack would be the key-note throughout What about defence, and who would keep the opposing centre-forward in check (assuming that the opposing team played the old formation) or the inside-forward under the new plan?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.