On 23 October 1884, a number of members of the
Lancashire Football Association, at the instigation of
Bolton Wanderers, met in
Blackburn with a view to resisting new Football Association legislation restricting the ability of clubs to "import" players. The result was the formation of a new association, the
British Football Association, made up of Lancashire clubs, plus
Aston Villa and
Walsall Swifts, and
Sunderland provisionally joining, pending a club committee vote; the main refusenik was
Blackburn Rovers, which had already "grandfathered" in its imported players, having been the first club to do so en masse. The breakaway was forestalled in July 1885, when the
Football Association voted to allow professional players to take part in football competitions, by 35 votes to 12, and the BFA was no longer necessary. and the win was, at the time, the biggest-ever
Scottish Cup win. ==National team==