The simple truth is that football of the association variety in Lancashire and therefore in North England was as public-school in its origins as it had been decade earlier in the South. In Blackburn in 1875 Rovers would be founded by two Former Pupils of Shrewsbury School, Darwen until that same year played rugby and before that the county's acknowledged first team, Turton, played to Harrovian rules until 1874 because one of its three founders in 1871 and its first team captain, John Charles Kay, aged seventeen, had just returned from Harrow School.

However, the rest of the Turton team seems to have been made up of local weavers, so working-men, association rules were first played in 1876, with discussion of a Lancashire FA from 1876, other teams in the surrounding towns and villages being formed, Darwen the first to enter the FA Cup in 1877, and the Lancashire FA officially founded in 1878 with its Honorary Treasurer for the first four years Turton's Secretary/Treasurer, the local school-master, William Dixon. And that was also when the Scottish influence began with first James Love persuaded that same summer to stay on after a Darwen-Partick friendly-match. It might not have been difficult as he was facing bankruptcy proceedings back in Glasgow. And he would be rapidly followed by Partick team-mate, Fergus Suter, said actually initially to be Turton-bound, possibly via Rangers, but switching clubs on arrival, and once more, clearly shamateur, in 1880 to Blackburn Rovers.    

Indeed Fergus Suter was to live out the rest of his life in North Lancashire, dying there in 1916 and buried in Blackburn. And his initial example would soon be followed by others, many others, some of whom would have or go on to represent Scotland but chose not to return. They are buried from the Fylde Coast, via Preston and Blackburn etc., to Burnley forming the North Lancs Trail.