After their formation and first game at Church, Blackburn Rovers continued to look for local teams to play. A stipulation was required; they had to be able to stage the match, as Rovers certainly couldn’t. The first two years of the club was dominated by their search for an appropriate home ground and, in the absence of one, by their away fixtures. Fortunately for them there were plenty of local teams to play and most had their own grounds. Or at least they had their own pitch, which often passed for a ground in those days. Football was booming in Blackburn and the surrounding areas. The mills and factories provided a horde of customers wishing to be entertained on their Saturday afternoon. In the time before cinema, football became just about the only passion they would have. It was either that or blowing all their hard-earned money in the pub. As Blackburn was described in a national paper at that time as being “the beeriest town in Britain”, it seems obvious many took to their local watering hole. Many, however, did not.

Usually the local teams tended to also be filled by these artisans, workers played in the teams and workers watched the teams. After such a demanding week of hard work, it is a testament to their stamina that they still had the energy to kick a ball around a pitch. Teams such as Cob Wall, Darwen and Blackburn Olympic thrived thanks to the factory workers on their day off. Rovers were always just that little bit different. They tended to attract a higher class of player and, for the first year or so, a higher class of fan. They tended to appear from the merchant and business class of the town. This meant that from the very start Rovers had the backing of influential businessmen. This backing of theirs did not immediately seem such a disadvantage to other local teams but over time it became obvious that Blackburn Rovers were just too well-funded for what were often little more elaborate than works teams to be able to compete. When Blackburn Olympic lost their benefactor in the mid-1880s they ended up folding within a few years. With Rovers, there always seemed to be others willing to take the place of any figure that left, at least in the early years.

As they had no ground they were initially reliant on the subscriptions of their members. The first year saw a collection £2 8 shillings, which enabled them to at least buy footballs and a set of goalposts in anticipation of when they would have somewhere to permanently place it.

Their first match had been away to Church. Details of their games at that time are very sketchy indeed. They definitely played at Cob Wall in Blackburn and once again at Church. These were only reported on briefly in the press and they tended to be very physical encounters in the manner of how the game was played at the time. Football was often portrayed as a sanitised version of war by public schools, as were many other games. This translated into the game (and the idea of ‘the game’) being the kind where you were expected to get knocks and bruises yet at the end to shake hands like a gentleman. As Rovers were a team composed of gentlemen it is unsurprising that they adopted this type sporting philosophy and outlook. Cob Wall were based in the Brookhouse area of Blackburn (close to the mills that ran along the canal) and also near Larkhill, more specifically on the playing ground next to St Albans Church. That would still be the closest to the town centre that Blackburn Rovers have ever played a football match.