I remember Reg discussing him a while back.
Yes.... here it is...
Flitters probably knows his football history and Town's role in developing the long ball game...
The long-ball game is a tactical gambit in thrall to ludicrously minute statistical data, so it's with some delicious glee that we can pinpoint its genesis almost to the exact minute. At around 3.53pm on 18 March 1950 – sometime during the half-time interval of the Third Division (South) match between Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers – the accountant and former RAF wing commander Charles Reep whipped out a notepad and pencil from his overcoat, and prepared to begin taking notes. Many, many, many, many notes.
Reep was embarking on the first great statistical analysis of football, and he quickly came to the conclusion that "85% of goals tend to be scored from passing sequences that involved a small number of passes, usually three or less" and that "two-thirds of goals come from balls recovered in the last third of the pitch". Teams should, he argued, adjust their tactics accordingly. There was no point playing possession football; better instead to hoof it upfield and deal with what unfolds there. (A simplification of his theories, but not by much; for "hoof", read "reacher", which is what Reep called "a single pass from the defensive third to the attacking third of the pitch".
Most teams in English football play some sort of long ball game.... however there are degrees of directness.