I suppose what you really want to know is what this business with the line is all about. I will get to that, but probably it is easier if I mention how the puzzle developed in order to put it into context. Three years, ago this puzzle was finished and submitted to the Listener at a time when Roger was still first editor. It was only just over a year after my first thematic crossword puzzle had been published. That one was in the shape of a tennis racket, which, if I think back, may have had an influence on this puzzle. I like pictorial themes, a puzzle where an object or pattern appears is pleasing to the eye (e.g. my Africa based debut Listener). So I wondered if it was possible to have a grid looking like a football pitch? With artistic licence regarding the dimensions, a 14 x 12 grid would suffice to get two penalty boxes and a centre circle. As with all themes, the solver needs a way in; no one likes a GLF (giant leap forward). The easiest way is to add a gimmick to the clues suggesting the solver draw three lines on a football pitch. Not exactly much of a puzzle. So I wanted to add something football related into it but not beyond the scope of anyone without knowledge of the game. To make life even more straightforward, I wanted a way of precisely guiding the solver regarding where to draw the first line. Some may think I am a Liverpool supporter, which is not the case. Chambers had Kop in relation to Anfield, so there was no need to dive off to the internet or other reference books for help. Anfield had all different letters, and KO meaning kick-off as part of Kop meant I could even start a game of football in the grid. I could put Kop into the grid as well making the P signal the start of the first penalty box. The second penalty box may have been too obvious to spot and I didn’t want the game given away too early, so I made sure that the grid could be altered making all real words.

I wanted a thematic gimmick in the clues and if I used the letters of Anfield being passed from one clue into another, then this should suffice. This meant the misprinted and correct letters had to be from the letters ANFIELD, which is not as easy as it sounds, given that I pretty much restricted the clues they were from.

The idea that the grid would act like the start of a game of football meant I could again use the letters of Anfield, which is why the clues were somewhat restricted. Which ones? At this stage I had finished the grid, which, in hindsight, was a bad decision. There was a D sitting nicely in the corner and I could connect a path of play from the centre spot (kick-off) right into the corner. (bi)CORNE sitting nicely down the grid meant I could ask the solver to add an R under the grid signifying where the line ended up.

So we have two reasons for the line. It merely signifies a possible path that the ball could take following kick-off. In the newspapers the path of the ball is often represented schematically like this. Secondly it was a corner. Well it wasn’t really, as anyone could tell you with knowledge of how to get a corner. The editors wanted this removed, and rightly I must add, given that the ball was hitting the corner flag, not making a corner.

With hindsight, I should have suggested to the editors that I reworked the puzzle to score a goal (in fact, I should have done that even before submitting it). I already had an entry with SCORE in it, which could have easily been incorporated into the puzzle as this could be a thematic clue. So with a minor tweak, I could have put the D at the point in front of the goal. In fact I have done it while writing this blog (see below).

There is one other point that will undoubtedly be raised by the purist football fans or the erudite solvers who went off to look up the rules of football. After a kick off, even though all your players are not in the opponents half, the ball must still be passed forward. One could argue that this is the wrong end, but then who is to say that one of these passes was not intercepted by the opponent and then carried on back into their own half. I reiterate, it is merely a possible path from the kick-off in football.

I must finally make a point about solvers who reject a puzzle purely based on the theme. There are a number of themes that I am not thrilled about, but I take the puzzle as a whole. I agree that we solve thematic puzzles because they have themes, but to me the theme isn’t everything and it is a little narrow-minded to expect a theme to cater to one’s liking every week. In fact there are a number of aspects that I strive to get when setting a puzzle, including the penny drop moment, the aesthetic nature of the grid, the balance of clues, the logical process of the solve, and an enjoyment factor. I may not have achieved the last with some solvers, however, I hope I have scored and ticked the boxes with the rest.

Please note this is not the correct entry grid:

Shark
 

Augeas writes:

This puzzle was composed in June last year, well in advance of the 3 July 2013 celebrations planned for the 75th anniversary. Imagine Augeas’s dismay when on 8 September Ifor’s A1 was published (4206) using a very similar idea about Flying Scotsman. Happily this didn’t lead to an immediate “seen that idea” rejection from The Editors and Class moved slowly though the process.

The original version had several more A4 ducks (Pochard, Gargeney and Gadwall). It also included as the fourth letter of the extra words an instruction to solvers: fix grid to appropriately sized piece of paper – hence the choice of the title Class to imply the importance of A4-ness. Augeas had not known that A4 is not widely available outside the UK, and especially not in the USA (although a bit of googling and the use of scissors should not have been beyond solvers accustomed to origami wrens and Advent calendars). Be that as it may, the instruction was to remove the instruction, so out it went. The upside of this was that the surface readings could be improved as the extra constraint of both second and fourth letters was eased. (As a footnote to the non-availability of A4 in the USA Augeas had forgotten the description in Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions, Penguin 1965, of how in 1939 Richard Feynman and others discovered flexagons when one had been idly fiddling around with the strips of paper made when he had to cut a one-inch strip from his American notebook sheets to fit his British binder.)

The inclusion of these other ducks meant that some very unattractive words appeared in the original version. These included IAINS (more than one Iain, clued as “MPs Stewart and Duncan Smith regularly extol Italianisms” (extol being extra) and AGEDNESSES, the inclusion of which proved to be the final straw for the original version. Lengthy two-way exchanges and a lot of helpful input from The Editors – for which much thanks – led to a second (almost the final) version which sadly removed all the extra ducks but resulted in a much tighter puzzle with none of the unattractive words. The third and final version was an across/down flop designed to remove the nazi swastika in the middle and replace it with the older peaceful version. Augeas had not come across this taboo before – the nazi version appears regularly in Azed and other barred puzzles. One to remember for future Listener submissions.

Commemorating Mallard’s record-breaking run by requiring solvers actually to write it in seemed a very unchallenging final step. After all, a puzzle about Don Bradman would, if possible, incorporate 99.94. The figure of 126 mph is widely known (and clearly shown on the plates attached to Mallard’s boiler and in any good book on the subject). Augeas had not reckoned with Wikipedia however. The figure of 125.88 given there is wholly without authentication, and in any event the 6 characters 125.88 do not constitute an achievement – they are merely a number. In 1938 speeds were not measured in kph anywhere in the UK outside science laboratories (and even there were more likely to be metres per second). The kph equivalent is merely a translation pandering to those who can’t cope with the imperial units. (Has the Book of Genesis been rewritten to tell us that Noah’s Ark was 1371.6 cms high?)

The dynamometer car attached to Mallard’s tender wasn’t accurate enough to reach even one decimal place. The official readings were 123 1/2 mph at Milepost 90 3/4; 124 at Milepost 90 1/2; 125 at Milepost 90 1/4; 124 1/4 at Milepost 90. There is no documentary evidence that any speed in excess of 125 mph was reached. However the driver and inspector on the footplate both agreed that Mallard’s speed had increased slightly between Milepost 90 1/4 and Milepost 90 before brakes were applied, and the figure of 126 mph was accepted by LNER and all concerned.

Augeas had not foreseen the degree of doubt and uncertainty surrounding this – fun, really – aspect of Class. As a 14-year-old boy he climbed along the running board and touched the commemorative sign while Mallard was being exhibited at King’s Cross, so felt that the 126 mph was sacrosanct – as indeed it was before Wikipedia chose to publish a spuriously accurate different version. Caveat Wikipedia, solvers, unless you know it’s right.

The appearance of STREAK was wholly serendipitous and Augeas couldn’t resist – he didn’t try very hard – inviting solvers to colour the word in Garter Blue (the colour borne by A4s in 1938). Since the word – as a synonym for an A4 locomotive – is almost wholly confined to former train-spotters it was clearly wrong to require it to be highlighted as a compulsory exercise – it was there as an Easter Egg for the added enjoyment of those – many indeed, from the feedback – who were pleased to revisit a happy part of childhood. Some solvers appear to have been unhappy with this (not the childhood bit: the colouring-in).

Despite this Augeas hopes that Class provided some amusement. Judging from feedback from a variety of sources it reinvigorated a large number of ex-small boys, some of whom were girls. Roll on 2038!