You know all the rest." A lecture half an hour long could not have made more impression.

I remembered those two hints, "Keep cool, and watch the ball," as long as I played football, and I would advise every half-back to take them to heart in like manner.
At noon the Craven team came down in an omnibus, and had lunch in hall with us, and half an hour later found us all in a straggling procession, making for the scene of conflict in the Great Close.

There stood the goals and the boundary-posts, and there was Granger, the ground-keeper, with a brand-new lemon-shaped ball under his arm.
"Look sharp and peel!" cried our captain.
So we hurried to the tent, and promptly divested ourselves of our outer garments, turned up the sleeves of our jerseys, and tied an extra knot in our bootlaces.

As we emerged, the Craven men were making their appearance on the ground in battle array.

I felt so nervous myself that I could not, for the life of me, imagine how some of them could look so unconcerned, whistling, and actually playing leapfrog to keep themselves warm! An officer in the Crimean War once described his sensation in some of the battles there as precisely similar to those he had experienced when a boy on the football field at Rugby.