Goal (sports)

“ For brilliancy of individual effort as well as of combined team play, for incessant movement and thrilling situations, for cheer-inspiring displays of undaunted pluck or untiring fleetness, there is no game that can compare with it. The ball flies all over the field, now soaring like a bird through the air, now skimming along the ground like a frightened field-mouse. First one goal is in danger, and the players crowd so thickly about it that you cannot see the goal-keeper. ”

“ The land you used to plough.
"Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?"
Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal. ”

“ There are qualifications required of a goal-keeper in an eminent degree, which, owing to the singleness of his responsibility, are as imperative as a strongly woven crosse. If it does not need courage to stand at the flags, and fear no pace of a ball, which would kill a dog if it struck it, tell us what does? What needs more undivided attention, more promptness, self-reliance and coolness, than when your goal is crowded by four or five red skins, and your own men in a desperate attack and defence? ”

“ Blessed with a strong, symmetrical frame, a quick eye, a sure hand, a perfect constitution, and abundant courage, he came easily by a mastery of the different sports he entered into, and had few equals, and fewer superiors, at cricket, football, lacrosse, baseball, swimming, rowing, and the other amusements of the day. ”

“ Run, boys! Run, boys! faster!
Ball and the bats for cricket;
Jack, you're the fastest runner here,
Be off, and pitch the wicket.
Football for those who choose—
The goal stick—go, Jim, fix it;
Give us the ball; who's won the toss? ”

“ Not only do you lose the game for your side if you let the ball through, but your reputation, and peace of mind. Any other man may pass muster, but you are a sinner. And bright and soft eyes do not look at you graciously any more—a serious trouble, everybody knows, to young fellows unwed.
But let us smooth the way for your defence of goal. We like to go to the flags with shoes on instead of moccasins, and, if throwing at goal from short distances is to become the rule, we intend to wear leg-guards, as in Cricket, for why should we needlessly expose our shins to fracture. ”

“ It is the goals made, not the men disabled, that give one victory, and victory is what every player should seek.
To the forward, discrimination is a valuable asset. When caught in a tackle so far away from goal that getting free will not help you pass the ball at once, don't allow your opponent to punish you. But if you are nailed within easy reach of goal, fight as long as there is breath of life in you. Never mind how helpless the task may seem, a team-mate [p. 172] may come to the rescue at any moment, and then you'll score. ”

“ Reckless of the defence of their own goal, on they come across the level big-side ground, the ball well down among them, straight for our goal, like the column of the Old Guard up the slope at Waterloo. ”

“ A deputation of braves advanced, examined the sticks severally, and carefully counted the men (thirty on each side) , and, this being done to universal satisfaction, a chief harangued the teams for a quarter of an hour, bidding them “play the game.” Having finished his speech, he told them to pick up their sticks—each player had two—and go to their places; whereupon they distributed themselves much as we should do at football or hockey, each goal, however, being guarded by two men. ”

“ Never break training rules. The pitcher who smokes a cigarette throws away his game. The punter who spends the night at a dance loses his one chance of making a goal. The sprinter who takes the glass of convivial beer breaks no record. His record breaks him. Some day we shall realize that the game of life is more than the game of foot-ball. We have work every day more intricate than pitching curves, more strenuous than punting the ball. We must keep in trim for it. We must hold ourselves in repair. We must remember training rules. ”

“ The success depends on catching the ball dexterously when thrown up, or dealt, and carrying it off expeditiously, in spite of all opposition from the adverse party; or, if that be impossible, throwing it into the hands of a partner, who, in his turn, exerts his efforts to convey it to his own goal, which is often three or four miles’ distance. This sport, therefore, requires a nimble hand, a quick eye, a swift foot, and skill in wrestling; as well as strength, good wind, and lungs. ”

“ Likewise they have the exercise of football, in which they only forcibly encounter with the foot to carry the ball the one from the other, and spurn it to the goal with a kind of dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honor of it. ”

“ GOAL, originally an object set up as the place where a race ends, the winning-post, and so used figuratively of the end to which any effort is directed. It is thus used to translate the Lat. meta, the boundary pillar, set one at each end of the circus to mark the turning-point. ”

“ When a match at foot-ball is made, two parties, each containing an equal number of competitors, take the field and stand between two goals, placed at a distance of eighty or a hundred yards the one from the other; the ball, which is commonly made from a blown bladder, and cased with leather, is delivered in the midst of the ground, and the object of each party is to drive it through the goal of their antagonists, which being achieved the game is won. ”

“ The specialized nature of games such as hockey or football leads these to address only one aspect of existence-the experience of the particular sport. A game can degenerate from being a competition structured by rules to a confrontation of nerves, violence, or national pride, or into sheer exhibitionism, disconnected from the drive for victory.
Although the physical basis for the practical experience of sports is the same- human beings as they evolved in time-in different cultures, different recurrent patterns and different meanings attached to them can be noticed. ”

“ Particularly at goal, a man wants to be shown fair play, or no good man will occupy that position. If you expect goal-keeper to restrain his desire to go out on the field, and lose the pleasures of a run, give him fair play in his own position. With a spirit of this kind, and an earnest desire to popularize fair play, in every part, our national game can never die; and the boast of an enthusiastic friend of ours will be fulfilled,—that one day “the sun will never set on our flags!” ”

“ Did you ever stop to ask yourselves what the right aim of athletics is—what the chief aim should be? Some of you will answer: ‘That’s easy; the chief aim of athletics is winning.’ Wrong; the true aim of all athletics, the world around, is physical culture. Winning is of small importance; contests are only incentives. We go in for athletics because we wish to attain to a condition of physical fitness that will allow us to make the most of our lives. Athletics without training is useless; it will accomplish almost nothing good. ”

“ Will they ever discover that sport is not merely a business of record breaking and that business and football, I class the two together, are not the sports of the stone age in which the vanquished was not only overthrown but subsequently utterly consumed? ”

“ Imagine the athletes of every village training for those prizes—thousands of boy-topers turning gymnasts, ward delegates running for something besides office, and the members of a Young Men's Association seeking paradise on this side of the grave!
With the decadence of athletic sports, games of skill come generally into favor ”

“ Well, the match is for the best of three goals; whichever side kicks two goals wins: and it won't do, you see, just to kick the ball through these posts—it must go over the cross-bar; any height'll do, so long as it's between the posts. You'll have to stay in goal to touch the ball when it rolls behind the posts, because if the other side touch it they have a try at goal. Then we fellows in quarters, we play just about in front of goal here, and have to turn the ball and kick it back before the big fellows on the other side can follow it up. ”

“ You will see, in the first place, that the sixth-form boy, who has the charge of goal, has spread his force (the goalkeepers) so as to occupy the whole space behind the goal-posts, at distances of about five yards apart. A safe and well-kept goal is the foundation of all good play. Old Brooke is talking to the captain of quarters, and now he moves away. See how that youngster spreads his men (the light brigade) carefully over the ground, half-way between their own goal and the body of their own players-up (the heavy brigade) . ”

“ Each man has his particular place to fill, his own work to do, and each position on the team, from the goal minder's to that of the centre forward, differing essentially from the others in the duties that it entails, calls for work that may not he used in any other. ”

“ Their goals are a mile long placed on the sands, which are as even as a board; their ball is no bigger than a hand ball, which sometimes they mount in the air with their naked feet, sometimes it is swayed by the multitude, sometimes also it is two days before they get a goal, then they mark the ground they win, and begin there the next day. ”

“ But shout and play with ball and bat,
Or dance with maidens fair;
Play tennis, cricket, kiss-in-the-ring,
Rounders or golf or catch,
Play baseball, rounders—anything, But please don’t fight and scratch.
Run quarter miles, or hurdle race,
Jump high or low or wide;
Try football tricks, both drop and place,
Join us in seek and hide.
But please don’t squabble, dear boys,
It isn’t nice to squall;
It looks so bad, makes such a noise,
It quite upsets us all. ”

“ Instead of making each throw as if the destinies of the world were at stake, the soldiers played fast and vigorously, aiming rather to knock the opponent's ball away from a coveted position near the goal than to reach the goal. ”

“ Bunching Game.—It is the highest art of goal- guarding to contest successfully against a bunch of opponents, especially if they be frantic Indians fighting your men for the ball. Stoop down low, and keep your eye on the ball. ”

“ The place of physical training and of games in education, the place of athletics in our daily life and in our national life, are questions of present importance to us all, and in considering these questions we cannot fail to learn something from the athletic history of a nation which for a time at least succeeded in reconciling the rival claims of body and of mind, and immortalized this result in its art. ”

“ Then you get your men, and pick sides, and pop the ball down in the middle, and wade in. For instance,’ he continued, ‘s’pose we’re playing Saddlestrap. Well, then, d’ye see, we’ve got one goal—that’s what they call the sticks—and they’ve got the other. We’ve to try and block ’em from kicking the ball over our cross-bar, and do our best, meantime, to send it over theirs. ”

“ No back should ever run toward his own goal; his duty is to gain ground, not to lose that already made.
Carrying the ball is not more than one-third of the work required of a half back on the offensive. ”

“ As you approach goal, throw the ball up a foot in front, and strike it into the flags as it descends, and if you follow the general rule, you will not have the least compunction about striking it into the keeper's face. ”

“ But if any one can present to us a sport or pastime, a race or a contest, which can in all its essentials of stirring excitement, displays of manly courage, nerve and endurance, and its unwearying scenes of skillful play and alternations of success equal our national game of ball, we should like to see it. ”

“ If anyone is moving when the player turns around, they exchange places, and the game continues, the children advancing step by step toward the goal. When one has reached the goal and touched it, he can go back again and begin all over. The one who touches the goal the greatest number of times just by stepping, and has not been caught, wins the game. ”

“ There is no finer sight among the long catalogue of athletic sports, more exhilarating and amusing to the true sportsman, than to see a walking-match carried out to the strict letter of the meaning, each moving with the grandest action of which the human frame is capable, at a pace which the feeble frame and mind is totally unable to comprehend, and must be witnessed to be believed. ”

“ Why has the first rank among sports been given to the chase? Because its difficulties, hardships, hazards, tumults, awaken the mind, and give to it a new consciousness of existence, and a deep feeling of its powers. ”

“ The game then is, to puck the ball through the opponents' goal. Two goal-masters are stationed at either goal, belonging one to each party, and they must be men of well-known experience as such. Their principal business is to see that the ball is put fairly between the stones ”

“ A player shall not throw the ball, nor pass it to another.
10. A goal shall be won when the ball passes through or above the space between the goal-posts, not being thrown, knocked on, or carried, and provided the ball flies wholly between the limits of the posts, without touching them in its flight. ”

“ It is like a flattened ball with a tail to it. With a club or stick you strike the tail so that the ball springs up in the air and [Pg 146] then before it falls you strike it with your club toward your enemy's goal line. The players are divided into sides who try to defend their goal lines and to send back the ball to the other side. Make your own rules as experience teaches you is fair. ”

“ But the college student is prone to adore muscle. The successful athlete is, for a brief period, praised, petted, and advertised far more than is the ablest student or professor in the institution. Scarcely do the noblest achievements of science or philanthropy receive so much notice as a successful full-back on a foot-ball team. The athlete goes up indeed like a rocket, startling the ear and dazzling the eye for a moment—then oblivion, or deserved obscurity. ”