The style of football that had become increasingly popular since its inception at Rugby School was played by the Proprietary School, as well as the style tending towards the dribbling game, represented to an extent by Eton's code and which would be set down formally in Cambridge rules in 1848.

With the exception of a rationalised and uniform football culture that was emerging in Sheffield in the 1850s, across the United Kingdom from club to club and school to school there was little agreement over the elements of a football game, be that the time it should take to play, the number of players in a side, or indeed whether running with the ball was illegal or not.

In order to allow matches to take place without such constraints and problems, a number of captains and representatives from various London clubs met at Freemasons' Tavern in Lincoln's Inn Fields on 26 October 1863.

Blackheath Proprietary School was one of the twelve teams represented (through the person of Mr. W. Gordon), and thus became a founder member of The Football Association.

[8] This club was soon populated with men from other schools, notably Old Rugbeians who were now living and working in London.

When the revised Cambridge rules were adopted on 8 December 1863, which effectively prohibited "hacking" and "carrying", Blackheath FC and the Proprietary School immediately left the FA and were the driving force behind the setting up of the RFU in 1871.