Football has been called the most popular game in the world, and it certainly has a great many fans in Britain. And now I want to mention the English terminology for football.

Association football (or soccer) is the game that is played in nearly all countries. A team is composed of a goalkeeper, two backs, three half-backs and five forwards.

Association football remains one of the most popular games played in the British Isles. Every Saturday from late August un-til the beginning of May, large crowds of people support their sides in football grounds up and down the country, while an almost equally large number of people play the game in clubs teams of every imagin-able variety and level of skill. Over the last 20 years though, the attend-ance at football matches has fallen away sharply. This is because of changing lifestyles and football hooligans about I have already written but I want to add that violence at and near the football grounds increased, there was an ever-increasing tendency for people to stay away, leaving the grounds to football fans.

After serious disturbances involving English supporters at the Eu-ropean Cup Finals in Brussels in 1985 which led to the deaths of 38 spectators, English clubs were withdrawn from European competitions for the 1985-1986 season by the Football Association. The Cup Final at Wembley remains, though, an event of national importance. Here is a drawing of a foot-ball field, or "pitch", as it is usually called.

The football pitch should be between 100 and 130 metres long and between 50 and 100 metres wide. It is divided into two halves by the halfway line. The sides of the field are called the touch-lines and the ends are called the goal-lines. In the middle of the field there is a centre circle and there is a goal at each end. Each goal is 8 metres wide and be-tween 21/2 and 3 metres high. In front of each goal is the goal area and the penalty area. There is a penalty spot inside the penalty area and a penalty arc outside it. A game of football usually lasts for one and a half hours. At half-time, the teams change ends. The referee controls the game. The aim of each team is obviously to score as many goals as possible. If both teams score the same number of goals, or if neither team scores any goals at all, the result is a draw.

The final of the football competition takes place every May at the famous Wembley stadium in London. Some of the best known clubs in England are Manchester United, Liverpool and the Arsenal. In Scot-land either Rangers, Celtic or Aberdeen usually win the cup or the championship.

Today, many people are only interested in football because of the pools and the chance of winning a lot of money.

Football pools

"Doing the pools" is a popular form of betting on football results each week. It is possible to win more than half a million pounds for a few pence.

The English have never been against a gamble though most of them know where to draw the line and wisely refrain from betting too often. Since the war the most popular form of gambling is no doubt that of staking a small sum on the football pools. (The word "pool" is connected with the picture of streams of money pouring into a com-mon fund, or "pool" from which the winners are paid after the firm has taken its expenses and profit.) Those who do so receive every week from one of the pools firms a printed form; on this are listed the week's matches. Against each match, or against a number of them, the optiputs down a I, a 2 or an x to show that he thinks the result of the match will be a home win (stake on fun’s team), an away win (stake on a team of opponent) or a draw. The form is then posted to the pools firm, with a postal order or cheque for the sum staked (or, as the firms say, "invested"). At the end of the week the results of the matches are announced on television and published in the news-papers and the "investor" can take out his copy of his coupon and check his forecast.

Rugby

There is another game called rugby football, so called because it originated at Rugby, a well-known English public school. In this game the players may carry the ball. Rugby football (or 'rugger') is played with an egg-shaped ball, which may be carried and thrown (but not forward). The ball is passed from hand to hand rather than from foot to foot. If a player is carrying the ball he may be 'tackled' and made to fall down. Each team has fifteen players, who spend a lot of time lying in the mud or on top