John Lewis, co-founder and captain of Rovers and later a three time FA Cup final referee. Lewis was the chairman of Rovers from 1875 until 1888. In the 1980s he was honoured by the John Lewis Complex being named after him at Ewood. It comprised of a restaurant and executive boxes. It was appropriate that a man of his executive class and standing should be so honoured, certainly having the toilets named after him wouldn’t have been quite so apt. © Cottontown

Rovers brought players back specially for the test matches, including FA cup winner Geordie Anderson, Harry Marshall and Josh Hargreaves. They were so desperate for goals they even brought in Peter Turnbull, who had been top scorer two seasons ago with a paltry seven league goals, he was hardly the 1898 version of Jimmy Greaves….Regardless of these desperate acquisitions, Rovers did not improve. In fact they got worse. They lost both their opening two games in the test matches meaning they were relegated before they even played their third or fourth games. Think it can’t get any worse? Well…seeing as both those games had been against Burnley, it evidently can. The first match saw a Tommy Briercliffe goal for Rovers count for little more than consolation, as Burnley won 3-1 at Ewood. The return at Turf Moor ended 2-0 to the home side and Rovers were down. What seemed like a bright spot, a thrilling 4-3 win at home to Newcastle in front of barely a thousand fans was soon blanked out as Newcastle won the return by 4-0.

Rovers were humiliated and relegated. Surely nothing could save them now. Of course not, what do you expect? The world to turn upside down and for a saviour to ride across from Burnley to save the day is some bizarre inversion of reality? You couldn’t make it up…

Yet just to prove that fact is stranger than fiction, that is exactly what did happen. Despite being promoted Burnley proposed that the First Division should be enlarged from 16 teams to 18. At the vote, the co-founder of Blackburn Rovers, John Lewis, bizarrely voted against the proposal yet it was carried through despite this. So not only had Burnley saved Rovers from relegation, they saved them from themselves as well! The bottom club, Stoke, also remained in the division.

No club has ever had a greater escape. From actually being relegated to being rescued due to no endeavour of their own, they were safe. Rovers deserved to go down, but they didn’t. So why bother feeling miserable, there was the future to look forward to. John Lewis went on to referee three FA Cup Finals before becoming vice-president of the FA. Lewis remains one of the most important figures in the growth of football that this country has ever had. We, however, are concerned with Rovers. They were long overdue an improvement on the pitch to match their astounding luck. They would get one immediately and while they wouldn’t set the world alight they would at least have some thing to be proud of…