Cylchgronau Cymru

proposed that a team of London Welshmen should challenge the Scottish or Irish residents to a rugby match. This prompted some- one signing himself 'Half-Back' to write the following week: 'If the members of some of the principal clubs in London would arrange to form a team to represent England in a match to be played under Association rules (the rules chiefly adopted in the Principality) a Cambrian team could very easily be mustered to meet them'. This provoked a third correspondent, 'Cymry' [sic], to write expressing enthusiasm for the Association project. Four days after that letter was published, Llewellyn Kendrick (who is generally believed to have been 'Cymry') attended a meeting in Wrexham at which the Football Association of Wales (F.A.W.) was founded, with himself as its first secretary. The points to note from this correspondence are, first, confirmation of the early dominance of 'Association', and, secondly, the locale of the first initiative in Wales to establish a national organization for 'the dribbling code'. Kendrick immediately followed up his initiative by accepting a challenge on behalf of Wales to play Scotland in Glasgow, and advertising for players who wished to participate in trial matches, on the basis of which the Welsh team would be selected. He placed his advertisement in The Field and Bell's Life, which suggests something of the social standing of the Association men of those days. A month later the Western Mail published a notice which trig- gered off the first north versus south controversy. C.C. Chambers, captain of Swansea F.C., and H. W. Davies, secretary of the South Wales F.C. (both rugby clubs, the latter a forerunner of the Welsh Rugby Union), wrote to the paper complaining that football talent in the south was being overlooked, and that the Western Mail notice was their first intimation that a game was to be played. Neither, it seems, read the London journals. Kendrick responded by inviting Chambers to submit his name for selection and both men to attend a general meeting of the newly-formed Association in May. They did not respond to either offer, thus forfeiting the opportunity of providing three of the six vice-presidents of the Association, following the election of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn as president. One wonders why the southern gentlemen were so perturbed by developments in the north, for although Chambers claimed he could raise 'a team who shall hold their own against any team from north Wales either at the Association or Rugby Union games the latter preferred', they were both primarily