The Lancashire Cup was retained in 1884, after beating two rivals from their own town in the later stages. It took a replay to beat Witton in the semi final and another replay to beat Blackburn Olympic in the final. As well as friendlies against local sides, they also played Scottish sides such as Dumbarton, Vale of Leven, Heart of Midlothian and Glasgow Rangers. They showed some of their local dominance in these games, thrashing Accrington eight nil, Darwen six nil Church 4-0. All of these were sideshows however as the main event was the FA Cup.

Rovers weren’t the only Blackburn side to challenge for the FA Cup that year, as Olympic reached the semi finals before losing heavily to Queens Park of Scotland 4-1 at Trent Bridge in Nottingham. Rovers began their campaign with some almost embarrassingly easy games. After beating Southport 7-0 at home in the first round they were drawn away to Blackpool South Shore and beat them 7-0 as well. It got more difficult in the next three rounds but not by much, knocking out Padiham (3-0), Staveley (5-1) and Upton Park (3-0) to set up a semi final with Notts County at Aston Lower grounds in Birmingham, their second semi final in three years. Over 100 sides had entered the FA Cup that year (well, 101 to be precise), yet the town of Blackburn had two of the semi finalists. It was an amazing achievement for the town, even if it was over a century ago.

There had been an element of scandal in the cup that year. After drawing 1-1 away to London side Upton Park, Preston North End were accused of being professional. Not only did they admit that they were but they claimed that other than Queens Park every other team from the north and midlands also were professional. Despite the FA knowing this to be true they still made an example of Preston and disqualified them. Luckily for Rovers, Upton Park didn’t complain when they beat them 3-0. In the semi final at Aston Lower Grounds (then home to Aston Villa) Rovers triumphed by the only goal. Joe Lofthouse’s effort was all that was needed to separate the sides. This result, coupled with Olympic losing their semi final, was to lead to an unbridgeable gap between Rovers and all the other local sides. Olympic later lost their only major benefactor and simply could not compete with Rovers.

Queens Park had been in scintillating form on their way to the final, having scored a massive 43 goals in their six games and were installed as the bookies favourites for the cup. The Rovers team that day was Herbie Arthur, Joe Beverley, Fergie Suter, Hugh Mcintyre (captain), Jack Hargreaves, Jimmy Forrest, Joe Lofthouse, Jimmy Douglas, Joe Sowerbutts, John Inglis (a fourth Scot!) and Jimmy Brown.