Three in a Row? It was four!
STEVE COYNE looks back at when Blackburn ruled the roost in the FA Cup…
INFORMED observers during Arsenal’s, ultimately unsuccessful, 2016 FA Cup campaign referred to their opportunity to equal the record of Blackburn Rovers, who, 130 years ago on April 10, 1886, won a third consecutive FA Cup when they beat West Brom 2-0 in a final replay at Derby.
It was a phenomenal achievement of the day but one that perhaps overlooked the town’s previous winners, just three years earlier, when their neighbours Blackburn Olympic FC defeated the Old Etonians 2-1 after extra-time at the Kennington Oval to bring the Cup to the north for the very first time.
For the East Lancashire town of Blackburn, therefore, it was four in a row!
Blackburn Olympic had a great football story to tell of the triumph of the underdog, of a team of working men, pioneers also of the professional game who achieved a lot in a brief existence that lasted between 1878 and 1889.
From their sloping, muddy ground in north Blackburn, the evocatively named Hole I’ th’ Wall, they travelled widely, Scotland and Ireland included, during the decade when the competitive professional game emerged, culminating in the inaugural season of the Football League in 1888.
By then, Olympic were in their final throes. Had the League been formed just a few years earlier, they would almost certainly have been founder members.
But for the presence of the then mighty, and wealthier, Rovers so close by, they may have survived longer.
What is certain is that Olympic lost a number of important players to them, including Jimmy Ward, their only England international capped in 1885, and prolific scorer Jack Southworth.
Olympic were formed in 1878 by a local iron foundry owner, Sidney Yates, who merged a number of local teams. Hole I’th’ Wall had a capacity of around 10,000 and included a grandstand on one side.
Built at a cost of £50, it unfortunately blew down in 1884. Newspaper accounts sometimes refer to the bleak weather at the hilltop site. The players changed in the nearby pub which still survives today on Shear Brow – a rare historic survivor of a once-famous club.
Their hour of glory came on March 31, 1883, just five years after their formation.
The team on Cup final day represented a microcosm of the town’s industry. There included three weavers, a spinner, a cotton machine operative, an iron-moulder’s dresser, and a picture framer. Goal-keeper Thomas Hacking was a dentist’s assistant, skipper Albert Warburton was a master plumber, and the line-up was completed by two players reputed to be professionals – forward George Wilson, and England international Jack Hunter, the latter also a Blackburn licensee.
The fact the players spent time at Blackpool training before the semi-final had encouraged further chatter about professionalism. It was to be another two years before the FA finally accepted professional players in July 1885. The classbased distinction between the initialled amateur and the ‘surname only’ pro was to rumble on.
By September 1886, support for the club had drifted, wages had to be reduced and players moved on.
The light blues always seemed to play second fiddle to Rovers. In some 38 derby games over the decade, they won just seven of them.
More players left to join the new League clubs and a rapid decline set in. Olympic lost Rovers, Preston North End and Everton from their fixture list and were soon back competing against village teams.
Their last ever home game was against a soldiers’ team, the King’s Own Regiment, ending with a 1-0 win.
The lease on Hole I’ th’ Wall was sold to face mounting debts. Blackburn Rovers bought it briefly before moving into the new Ewood Park in 1890.
In August 1889, the Blackburn Times reported that this once- famous club had gone.
The 1883 FA Cup winners, the first of Blackburn’s ‘Four in a Row’ had ceased to be.
The first FA Cup itself, six times in Blackburn’s possession up to 1891, lasted only a short while longer, before it was stolen from Mr Shillock’s sports outfitters shop in Birmingham in 1895 while in the care of Aston Villa. It was believed to have been melted down to make forged coins.