The rain, the snow, and the gale contrived to ruin the match at New Cross yesterday, but the better side won; England beat Wales by three goals to none. It was the Football Association's match; there was a great array of the members of the governing body, and the general public patronised the game to the extent of some twenty thousand. Millwall's new ground does not at the first moment appeal to one. It used to be thought that the primary condition for good football was at least a semblance of turf; as the field appeared yesterday it was a sand-strewn ground, which the weather converted very quickly into a quagmire. You need turf on which to play real 'soccer'; no wonder the men failed to do themselves justice in the first half of the game. Midway in the second half some pretty work by the English forwards produced two goals within two minutes, and the ten minutes from 'Time' came the third goal. The actual scorers were Woodward (two) and Webb; but the merit of the work belong to Evans. the outside left, and Simpson, the outside right, who has been made famous by the record transfer fee of £2,500 which Blackburn Rovers paid. Well, if ever [a] labourer was worthy of his hire it was Simpson on yesterday's form. He has pace and skill and generalship; the insides did not work very well for him or even for Evans. Indeed the F.A. amateurs Webb and Woodward did not quite blend with the professional game; Webb did many clever individual things and was usually on the ball, but Woodward is not so fast as he was, and that little extra bit of pace that is now missing makes all the difference. With the wind behind them the English players ought to have done very much better in the first half. As it was the insides neglected the wing forwards or else delivered their passes badly. Simpson and Evens did their best. But the play was very disjointed; the amateur members of the side were those who were most conspicuously failed to find their real form. Hunt, the old Oxford 'blue,' in his anxiety to mark the great William Meredith seemed often to forget the principle of attack in the half-back; Woodward was often just that stride too late; he may have shot two goals, but any ordinary player could have achieved that from the splendid openings which Simpson made. Why were so many chances missed? A forward like G. O. Smith would have made half a dozen goals yesterday—mud or no mud.
   The veteran, Crompton, of Blackburn Rovers, and Pennington, of West Bromwich, never made a mistake at full back, though Pennington was slightly lamed in the early moments of the game; as for Wedlock, the centre half-back, and Warren, the right half-back, they surpassed themselves in the conditions. The Welshmen made a splendid fight against the wind; their defence was not only very good, but some of their attacks were skilfully manœuvred. As a fact, their forwards were much more adept dribblers than the English; but England's defence was tremendously strong. What struck one in this game was the degeneracy of Association football. It seems nowadays to be little else than high kicking and heading and long passing, the old art of the game—that is, dribbling, seems to have been lost. Simpson did his best when the insides thought to give him the ball, so also did Evans. But on such a day and on such a field much must be excused. Wales put up a splendid defence, and Evans, as substitute for L. R. Roose, in goal did excellently.