New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-02-09
Substitutes i'm
Soccer Given
St.Louis' OK.
Long-s,anding Custom, Not
Covered by Laws of Game,
Overthrow for FirstIime
By c. 4. Lovett

Substitutes in association football, or
soccer. advocated from time to time in
this column, and urged by such we'll
known authorities from the old coun-
try as James NJ. Valdez, of Phila-
delphia, and Harry Dale, the famous
Paterson referee, are shortly to be-
come an actuality in the United States
Generally? No, not quite yet. St
Louis the first city in the country IN
point of strength of soccer teams COM
posed of purely native-bo players, is
the pioneer in the adoption of the use
of substitutes on this side Of the At
lantic. The st. Louis Soccer League,
whose picked teams have yet to be
beaten by the formidable Bethlehem
Steel Football Club, officially recog-
nized as national champions, voted, at
meeting held last Tuesday, to adopt
rule permitting the use of substitutes.
Soccer is the only major sport which
has imposed the narrow and unsports-
manlike, if unwritten, law OF mo sub
stitutions." Players removed from the
game for whatever cause, accident or
edict of the referee, have never been
replaced, except by consent of the
captain of the opposing team, and then
only at half-time. When player IS
taken from the game through injury
or illness his team is thus penallzed
by his loss, and many game has been
won unmeritoriously through this un-
fortunate condition.
Ridiculed by Some
When The Tribune first argued for
substitutions the imported element,
largely in control Of the kicking game
in the East. was inclined to scott. But
the native born soccer player or fol-
lower of the fast-growing fall-to-sp
game always has recognized the mo
substitutions" custom as unfair. And
so when such leaders of soccer thought
as Valdez, who is secretary of the
United States Referee Union and prob
ably the most capable handler of the
whistle in the country to-day, and
Dale, who now is retired from active
refereeing, joined The Tribune in its
advocacy of a properly restricted use
of substitutes in soccer, the $500 or
professional players of the country
sat up and took notice.
St Louis is first to take the progress
sive step. The new rule of the league
which plays its games on Cardinal
Field. the home of the st. Louis Ma
tional League Baseball Club, will per-
nit the replacing of not more than two
men of any one team during game
providing the men replaced have been
forced out of the game through nc
fault of their own No substitution is
for misconduct. The rule goes into eff
feet with next Sundays games of the
regular league schedule.
The departure from custom does MOI
justify the interference of the govern
ing national body, the United States
Football Association. The st. Loui!
League is affiliated with the U. S. F. A
through the Missouri Soccer Football
Association, which has sanctioned tn,
leagues action. Nowhere in the rule
or regulations of the national organiza
ton is the use of substitutes prohib
tied, and on the other hand, nowher
is substitution provided for.
Point Is Not Covered
The laws of the game, adopted from
those generally in use among the ma
tIonal organizations constituting tn
Federation Rationale de Football Asso
citation, SIMPLY say: "The game shall
be played by eleven players on eacl
side" It is TO more sane argument t
say substitutions for two injured play
ers of one side would make that sid
consist of thirteen players than to hol
that a side is using as many men a
it has reserves on its roster Reserve
ON the sidelines come closer. strict
speaking, to being in the game than If
capacitated players removed to club
house or hospital, as the case may b.
And what makes the change in prat
tice all the more necessary is the fat
that soccer games in the winter an
spring, as often as not, are played O
pitches partly or wholly Recovered {
frozen severely hard and very roug
So that accidents, in some cases, hay
reduced one team to as few az eigf
and nine players not infrequently.