History
Until the employment of professionals by Darwen and their success in reaching the quarter finals of the FA Cup in 1879, all teams had been amateur. There was a proposal by a London club before the match that any side not consisting entirely of amateurs should be barred from the Cup.
Professionalism spread throughout the northern clubs with Blackburn Olympic winning the Cup in 1883 and Blackburn Rovers the following three years.
In 1883 Accrington were expelled from the FA for paying players and in 1884 Preston North End were suspended for one year from the Cup for openly admitting to payments in order to compete with Blackburn Rovers.
Many rules were now introduced to restrict professionalism, such as only Englishmen being allowed to play in the Cup, many professionals being from Scotland. These restrictions led to the formation of the British Football Association in Manchester in 1884 by 37 clubs as a rival to the FA. This threat of secession was to lead to the legalisation of professionalism on 20 July 1885 by the FA making the new body redundant. This action by the FA was eventually to lead to the break away and formation of the Amateur Football Association in 1907.
A similar split in rugby led to the separate sports of rugby union and rugby league.
Read more about this topic: British Football Association
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)