And so it begins: this is the first Charlie Brown missing the football gag from Peanuts. Here it’s not Lucy, but Violet, November 14, 1951.
The first one with Lucy is a year later, November 16, 1952.
This one gets a geezer tag. The Heidi game was in 1968, 56 years before Jimmy Johnson drew this comic!
Comics I Don't Understand 
In the first strip, it seems Charlie Brown is a right-footed kicker. Both Violet and Lucy are holding from the left (wrong in the circumstances) side. No wonder they both bail out to avoid a collision.
I also just noticed what ootenaboot pointed out. I can’t distinguish from the 2-D drawing which foot Charlie Brown used to kick with. He’s either a lefty or was going to run into the placeholder. I’d need to see newer comic strips to see if he always approaches the ball from the left.
Based on looking at a number of Peanuts drawings, here are my findings: Charles Schulz was right-handed and Charlie Brown must have been ambidextrous and could kick equally poorly with either foot. (That’s at least a guess, since he never was able to connect with the ball, it can’t be determined whether either foot was a dominant one.)
I grew up with ‘goat’ meaning a terrible player especially Joe Shlabotnik, Charlie Browns hero.
Now, the young people tell me it means “Greatest Of All Time.”
When did that happen?
This was when Lucy was a wide-eyed innocent a bit younger than Charlie Brown. Over time she grew to be the same age as Charlie Brown. Likewise Schroder, introduced as a silent toddler. Linus, originally a tad older than Schroder, remained Lucy’s younger brother but tended to hang out with Charlie Brown, Schroder, and Lucy.
Note she screws up here without malice. Soon would come the fussbudget phase, and then the purposeful meanness — usually targeted at Linus, but also Charlie Brown with the football-pulling, dubious advice, and random insults.
Violet, eventually a bit player along with Shermy and (non-Peppermint) Patty, seemed to be the official pretty girl. Before the Little Red-Headed Girl appeared (so to speak), Violent was object of Charlie Brown’s occasional romantic gestures. A favorite Sunday had Charlie Brown carefully rehearsing for Valentine’s Day and blowing it (“This is for you, Violent. Merry Christmas … AUGHH!”).
A fine collection for this special day.
Here’s an article on the topic of GOAT:
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/08/goat-greatest-of-all-time-origin-muhammad-ali-ll-cool-j
Robert is rather anti-sports, especially professional sports. I have probably posted this in the past, but will annoy with it again –
In the old days when the Superbowl was played in the afternoon for EST we used to go to the mall on Sundays to just to walk around. On Superbowl Sunday the stores which sold TVs (and there were more of them – even Macys and Gimbels sold TVs then) would all have the Superbowl on. We would be going though the store and while no one was at the TVs for a minute or so – he would change the channel on all of the ones which were on display and turned on – away from the game to some show which would particularly annoy anyone who wanted to watch the game.