 Fixtures did not necessarily confine clubs to playing other teams with a similar rating but if, for example, a Senior club played a Junior club, the Junior club would be allowed to have a greater number of players on the field.Clubs did not only play against other Victorian clubs and games between interstate teams were surprisingly frequent, particularly for the days before the establishment of interstate railway links, when the most common way of travelling from Melbourne to, say, Sydney or Adelaide, was by sea.In the mid/late-1870s an annual called "The Footballer" was published.