Blackburn Olympic F.C.
Full name | Blackburn Olympic Football Club | ||
---|---|---|---|
Nickname(s) | The Light Blues | ||
Founded | 1878 | ||
Dissolved | 1889 | ||
Ground | Hole-i'-th'-Wall Blackburn | ||
League | None (1878–1888) The Combination (1888–1889) | ||
|
Blackburn Olympic Football Club was an English football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire in the late 19th century. Although the club was only in existence for just over a decade, it is significant in the history of football in England as the first club from the north of the country and the first from a working-class background to win the country's leading competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup). The cup had previously been won only by teams of wealthy amateurs from the Home counties, and Olympic's victory marked a turning point in the sport's transition from a pastime for upper-class gentlemen to a professional sport.
The club was formed in 1878 and initially took part only in minor local competitions. In 1880, the club entered the FA Cup for the first time, and three years later defeated Old Etonians at Kennington Oval to win the trophy. Olympic, however, proved unable to compete with wealthier and better-supported clubs in the new professional era, and folded in 1889.
Most of Olympic's home matches took place at the Hole-i'-th'-Wall stadium, named after an adjacent
History
Formation and early years
In April 1878, the club entered its first competition, the Livesey United Cup. Olympic beat St. Mark's in the final to win the tournament, and, as the competition was not held again, the club retained the trophy in perpetuity.[4] Over the next two seasons the club continued to play friendly matches and also entered the Blackburn Association Challenge Cup, a knock-out tournament open to all local clubs set up by the organisation which governed football within the town. Olympic won the cup in both 1879 and 1880, after which the competition was discontinued when the Blackburn Association was absorbed into the larger Lancashire County Football Association. As with the Livesey United Cup, the trophy remained in Olympic's possession for the remainder of the club's existence.[5]
In 1880 the club's committee decided that Olympic should compete for greater prizes, and opted to enter two further competitions, the Lancashire Senior Cup and the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup), the country's premier football competition.[6] In the club's first FA Cup match, the "Light Blues" were defeated 5–4 by Sheffield,[7] and the following season the team again lost in the first round, away to Darwen.[8] The club's reputation within its home area was growing, however, and matches were now being arranged with teams from further afield, such as Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, and even Scottish clubs such as Cowlairs and Hibernian.[9] The club's increasing expenses were met with the help of Sydney Yates, a local iron foundry owner, who invested a large amount of money and continued to bankroll the club for most of its existence.[10] At the end of the 1881–82 season, Olympic defeated Blackburn Rovers to win the East Lancashire Charity Cup.[11]
Success
In the
Before the final, former England player Jack Hunter, who had joined the club in 1882 in the twin roles of player and coach, arranged to take the team to Blackpool for several days' special training. Such an undertaking had never before been made by a club, and it was considered an extremely novel idea.[16][17]
The Etonians took the lead in the final when
In the south, however, Olympic's victory over one of the great amateur teams provoked consternation. At the time, The Football Association (the FA), the sport's governing body, prohibited clubs from paying their players. Despite this, working-class clubs, especially those based in Lancashire, had been widely suspected of making illicit payments to players since at least 1876.[23] In the wake of Olympic's high-profile victory, journalists and officials affiliated with southern amateur clubs intensified their calls for the FA to investigate the finances of northern clubs. They focussed in particular on Olympic's training excursion to Blackpool, suggesting that the players would not have been able to take so much time off work unless the club was paying them some form of wage. Questions were also asked about players who had relocated from one town to another seemingly for the sole purpose of playing for a new football team. In Olympic's case Jack Hunter had moved from Sheffield to join the club.[24] Ultimately no action was taken against Olympic, although punishments were imposed on other clubs, including Preston North End, who were expelled from the FA Cup. This in turn prompted the northern clubs to make plans to break away from the FA and form a rival governing body which would not impose the so-called "amateur ideal" on clubs.[25][26]
Decline and collapse
The following season, Olympic again reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, as did Blackburn Rovers. When the draw for the semi-finals was made, Olympic were paired with
The club was never again able to achieve this level of success. In the 1884–85 season, Olympic lost in the second round of the FA Cup to rivals Rovers, who went on to cement their position as the town's leading team by winning the competition for the second consecutive season.[29] The threat of a schism within the sport was averted in 1885 when the FA agreed to legalise professionalism.[30] In a town the size of Blackburn, however, Olympic found it hard to compete for spectators and sponsors with the longer-established and more successful Rovers, and as a result could not pay wages on a par with those offered by that club or by other professional clubs in Lancashire. In 1886 the club's committee was forced to reduce the players' wages to a quarter of what was being offered by Preston North End. Many of the team's key players walked out in response and were quickly signed by wealthier clubs.[31]
Stadia and supporters
Olympic's first match took place on a pitch owned by the Blackburn Cricket Club, situated in open countryside at Higher Oozebooth. For the first eighteen months of the club's existence, Olympic played home matches at various sites in Blackburn, including Roe Lee and Cob Wall.
The playing surface sloped downwards and was initially known for being exceptionally muddy, but in 1880 the club's committee spent £100 improving the drainage.
Colours
At the start of the club's existence, the players usually wore magenta shirts, although the rules regarding kits were less rigid at the time, and half-back Tommy Gibson insisted on wearing a supposedly lucky amber and black hooped shirt, a practice later copied by teammate Alf Astley.[44] When the club entered the FA Cup for the first time in 1880, competition regulations meant that all the players in the team had to wear matching colours, and a new combination of light blue shirts and white shorts was chosen.[44] When there was a clash of colours with the opposition and Olympic were the team obliged to change, the players wore dark blue shirts and white shorts.[45] There is no record of the club having a badge or crest, although photographs of the FA Cup-winning team show several players with the crest of the Lancashire FA sewn onto their shirts, indicating that they had represented Lancashire in inter-county matches.[46]
Players
The club's FA Cup winning team of 1883 comprised eleven players born in England, the first time an all-English XI had won the competition.[47] The team lined up as follows:[48]
Position | Player(s) |
---|---|
Goalkeeper | Thomas Hacking |
Backs | James Ward, Albert Warburton
|
Half-backs | Thomas Gibson, Jack Hunter, William Astley |
Forwards | John Yates
|
James Ward was the only player to be selected for the England team while on the books of the club.[49] He won one cap, against Wales in 1885.[50] Tommy Dewhurst was originally chosen for an international match in 1884, but was deselected after he was involved in a fight with an opposition player during a match between Olympic and Northwich Victoria.[51] Six other Olympic players represented England either before or after their time with the club: Joe Beverley, Edgar Chadwick, Jack Hunter, Jack Southworth, William Townley and John Yates.[52]
Officials
The concept of a football manager did not exist in the 19th century, although some modern sources identify Jack Hunter as having been the team's manager.[15][53] Hunter's main responsibility was for the coaching of the players, although in the club's later years he also took charge of seeking out and signing promising amateur players.[54] The club's benefactor, Sydney Yates, held the post of president and his brother Fred served as chairman of the club's committee. The majority of the administration of the club was handled by the secretary, a post held for most of the club's existence by Bill Bramham.[55]
Honours
The club won the following trophies:[36]
- 1883
- East Lancashire Charity Cup
- Blackburn Association Challenge Cup
- Livesey United Cup
The only competition the club entered but never won, other than the unfinished Combination, was the Lancashire Senior Cup.[36]
Rivalries
Blackburn Olympic's chief rivalry was with Blackburn Rovers. The first match between the two clubs was a game in February 1879, which resulted in a 3–1 win for Olympic. The clubs played each other forty times, but Olympic won only six of these matches.[36] The rivalry became especially fierce in September 1884, when, amid accusations that the clubs were using underhand tactics in attempts to "poach" each other's star players, the Rovers' secretary sent a telegram to his opposite number stating that his club would play no matches against Olympic in the 1884–85 season. In December, however, the clubs were drawn against each other in the FA Cup, and matches between the rivals resumed later that season.[56] Their final meeting was a benefit match for Olympic in February 1889, which Rovers won 6–1. Rovers agreed to allow the financially embarrassed Olympic to keep all available gate money, instead of sharing it.[36]
In popular culture
A Blackburn-based team and its victory in the 1883 FA Cup final is the focus of the 2020 Netflix mini-series The English Game, although the club is only referred to as "Blackburn" and includes players who, although genuine, did not actually play for Olympic.[57]
Bibliography
- Davies, Hunter (2003). Boots, Balls and Haircuts: An Illustrated History of Football from Then to Now. Cassell Illustrated. ISBN 1-84403-261-2.
- Phythian, Graham (2007). Shooting Stars: The Brief and Glorious History of Blackburn Olympic 1878–1889. SoccerData. ISBN 978-1-899468-83-6.
- Soar, Phil; Tyler, Martin (1983). Encyclopedia of British Football. Willow Books. ISBN 0-00-218049-9.
- Warsop, Keith (2004). The Early FA Cup Finals and the Southern Amateurs. SoccerData. ISBN 1-899468-78-1.
References
- ^ Davies, pp. 29, 33
- ^ a b Phythian, p. 7
- ISBN 0-391-01718-7.
- ^ Phythian, p. 9
- ^ Phythian, pp. 82–83
- ^ Phythian, pp. 21, 23
- ^ "FA Cup 1880–81". The Football Club History Database. Archived from the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 19 July 2009.
- ^ "FA Cup 1881–82". The Football Club History Database. Archived from the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 19 July 2009.
- ^ Phythian, pp. 84–85
- ^ Phythian, p. 44
- ^ Phythian, p. 86
- ^ a b c "FA Cup 1882–83". The Football Club History Database. Archived from the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 19 July 2009.
- ^ Soar, Tyler, p. 157
- ^ Phythian, p. 43
- ^ a b Soar, Tyler, p. 158
- ISBN 1-84426-035-6.
- ^ Warsop, p. 7
- ^ Warsop, p. 38
- ^ Warsop, p. 139
- ^ Soar, Tyler, p. 20
- ^ "A brief history of ... the rise and fall of the FA Cup, England's Super Bowl". The Guardian. 29 May 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
- ^ April 2020, Conor Pope 09. "Why the real history behind The English Game matters – and what it tells us about modern football". fourfourtwo.com. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Davies, p. 36
- ^ Phythian, p. 54
- ^ Davies, p. 38
- ISBN 0-7146-8290-X.
- ^ Phythian, p. 61
- ^ "FA Cup 1883–84". The Football Club History Database. Archived from the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
- ^ "FA Cup 1884–85". The Football Club History Database. Archived from the original on 16 February 2010. Retrieved 27 July 2009.
- ISBN 978-0-14-101582-8.
- ^ Phythian, p. 71
- ISBN 0-356-15072-0.
- ISBN 978-0-9558127-0-5.
- ISBN 1-899468-16-1.
- ^ Phythian, p. 79
- ^ a b c d e Phythian, pp. 82–96
- ^ Phythian, p. 10
- ^ a b Phythian, p. 15
- ^ Davies, p. 85
- ^ Phythian, p. 29
- ^ Phythian, p. 64
- ^ Phythian, p. 18
- ^ Phythian, p. 99
- ^ a b Phythian, p. 8
- ^ Phythian, p. 36
- ^ Phythian, p. 81
- ISBN 978-1-899807-81-9.
- ^ Warsop, p. 53
- ^ Phythian, p. 120
- ^ "Jim Ward". The Football Association. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 19 July 2009.
- ^ Phythian, p. 59
- ISBN 1-899468-67-6.
- ISBN 978-0-582-50596-4.
- ^ Phythian, p. 74
- ^ Phythian, p. 67
- ^ Phythian, pp. 63–66
- ^ "The English Game: Netflix replays the birth of modern football". BBC. 18 March 2020. Retrieved 1 May 2021.
External links