James Douglas, a Scot who joined Rovers in as a right half in 1880 and played in all three of the trio of successive cup wins. Douglas stayed with Rovers for twelve years, long enough to play in the Football League. After retiring Douglas, among other things, took the traditional retired footballer route of becoming a landlord. © Cottontown

As 1884 began, Blackburn enjoyed the status of being national champions at football due to the FA Cup win. Irritatingly for those at the Leamington Street ground, it was Blackburn Olympic rather than Rovers who were the recipient of the applause and admiration of the town. The Olympic team were cheered by crowds at every train station they stopped at on the way home from London. Back in Blackburn a large crowd were there to cheer their procession through the town. A local poet, William Billington, even penned a tribute in verse for them. It wasn’t any good (in fact, like most poetic odes to sport, it was bloody rubbish) yet it was still more than Rovers had written for them. Olympic even went on to play the Scottish cup winners Dumbarton in the first-ever ‘Battle of Britain’ clash. They lost 6-1 though and so I doubt they had quite some reception when they came back to Blackburn after that particular trip...

Presumably the most irritating part of all this celebration from a Rovers point of view was that not only were they unlikely to think of Olympic as the best team in the land, they didn’t especially think they were the best team in Blackburn! In the six months before Olympic won the FA Cup, Rovers had met them on two occasions and beaten them easily on each occasion, by 4-1 and then 3-0. Six weeks after their FA Cup win, Olympic met Rovers in the final of the East Lancashire Charity Cup at the Barley Bank ground in Darwen. Rovers won 6-3. There seemed little doubt as to whom the best side was, yet Olympic had won the games that really mattered. It was about time they turned their dominant local position into national success. In doing so, Blackburn Rovers would become the first ever dominant side in professional football.

Before starting on this period of success how about I introduce the team? Eight of the players would play in all three of the successive FA Cup finals whilst Jimmy Forrest, the left half for Rovers, would go even further by playing in five FA Cup finals and being on the winning side in them all. In goal for Rovers was future England international Herb Arthur, who won seven caps. It wouldn’t be until the arrival of Tim Flowers over a century later that a Blackburn Rovers goalkeeper would be picked more times for England while at the club. The others to appear in all three finals were the full back Fergie Suter, half back Hugh McIntrye, right half James Douglas, and the three ‘J’ forwards: Jimmy Brown, Joe Lofthouse (who would win four winners medals with Rovers but did not play in the 1886 final) and the wonderfully-named Joe Sowerbutts. The backbone to the cup winning sides was the Scottish trio of Suter, Douglas and McIntyre. The goals came from the prolific Sowerbutts, Forrest and Lofthouse. However it was Jimmy Brown who posed the greatest threat to any opposing side, as he proved when scoring in many an FA Cup game and in a final. The Blackburn-born Brown would score an extremely impressive 29 goals in 32 FA Cup games and would also be capped by England.