page_title: Arthur Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird
section_title: Playing style
hierarchical_section_title: Arthur Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird / Football career / Player / Playing style
caption_attribution_description: English: Caricature of Arthur Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird. Caption read "Soccer".
context_page_description: Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird KT was a British principal of The Football Association and a leading footballer, considered by some journalists as the first football star. He played in nine FA Cup Finals, a record that stands to this day. His record of five wins in the competition stood until 2010, when it was broken by Ashley Cole.
  Kinnaird also served as president of The FA for 33 years. For his contributions to football and the FA Cup, he was given the FA Cup trophy itself to keep in 1911 when a new trophy was commissioned.
context_section_description: He was renowned as perhaps the toughest tackler of his day, giving rise to the (probably apocryphal) story that his wife once expressed the fear that he would "come home one day with a broken leg." A friend is said to have responded: "You must not worry, madam. If he does, it will not be his own." Posterity has awarded Arthur Kinnaird the reputation of being fond of 'hacking', i.e. deliberately kicking his opponents. This is not entirely fair: reports from his playing days do not criticise him, and he owes his notoriety to an oft-repeated anecdote which first appeared in an October 1892 issue of Pastime magazine, a weekly sporting journal that was edited by Nicholas Lane 'Pa' Jackson, founder of the Corinthian Football Club and a committee member of the Football Association.
  Jackson wrote: 'The keen rivalry which at one time existed between the Old Etonians and Old Harrovians lent an additional zest to the matches between them, and in one of these Lord Kinnaird's energy was expended as much on the shins of his opponents as on the ball. This at length caused a protest from the captain of the Harrovians, who asked, 'Are we going to play the game, or are we going to have hacking?'  'Oh, let us have hacking!' was the noble reply.' Jackson later reveals that the opposing captain was Charles Alcock, which pinpoints the likely origin of the anecdote to a game on 16 November 1872, described as 'a friendly, but most vicious game of football' by The Graphic newspaper. Alcock and Morton Peto Betts were sufficiently disabled to be unable to play for England in the first official international, two weeks later.
  Sportswriters and fellow internationals queued to pay tribute to Kinnaird's skill as a footballer both during and after his career. He was, according to "Tityrus" (J.A.H. Catton), editor of the Athletic News: 
  "of yeoman build and shaggy auburn beard, [and] did not quite look the part of a Scottish laird, until one spoke to him, and heard his rich, resonant voice and his short ejaculatory sentences. Of course, he had the voice and manner of an educated man of distinction.
  
  "He was a leader, and above all things, a muscular type of Christian... As a player, in any position, [he] was an examplar of manly robust football. He popularised the game by his activity as a footballer among every class. He was at much at home with the boys of the Polytechnic, London, as he was with the Old Etonians.
  
  "There was a time when the white ducks of Kinnaird, for he always wore trousers in a match, and his blue and white quartered cap were as familiar on the field as the giant figure of W.G. Grace with his yellow and red cricket cap... Lord Kinnaird used to say that he played four or five matches a week and never grew tired, but he added, late in life, that he would never have been allowed to stay on the field five minutes in these latter days. Nevertheless, he was fair, above board, and was prepared to receive all the knocks that came his way without a trace of resentment."
caption: Caricature of Kinnaird published in 1912
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