whenever another team adopted the same strategem. Staveley had gone over 30 matches in the season without defeat before meeting Blackburn Rovers again in the fifth round, but the repeat holders proved too strong for the club. Local success and tragedy The club was the most successful in Derbyshire in the 1880s, reaching five consecutive Derbyshire Cup finals, albeit helped by Derby County boycotting the competition for part of the period. However Staveley was not considered for Football League membership, given the small size of the village and the low crowds that were likely. While playing for Staveley, on 12 January 1889 against Grimsby Town at Clee Park, Lincolnshire, William Cropper collided with Dan Doyle, the Grimsby rightback, after fifteen minutes. He was badly injured by Doyle's knee in his abdomen and left the field in obvious distress. The collision resulted in a ruptured bowel and he died in the dressing room at Grimsby in the arms of his Staveley and Derbyshire County Cricket Club teammate George Hay. Midland League The club was a founder member of the Midland Counties League, but the club did not survive three seasons, given the difficulties of a village side in the professional era. Staveley finished mid-table in 1889–90, but was bottom in 1890–91, in part because of the resignation of Warwick County F.C. and Kidderminster F.C., who would both have finished below the club. Despite the balance sheet at the end of the 1890–91 season being in a "satisfactory condition", the club went bust in 1891 and its fixtures were expunged from the league; at the time the club was bottom of the table, with 1 win and 1 draw from 8 fixtures, the final match being an 8–0 defeat at Burton Wanderers on 5 December. The club intended to complete its Cup fixtures, and played its Derbyshire Senior Cup semi-final at Derby County reserves on 2 January 1892, but lost 10–0, with many of its regular players declining to play, and George Hay watching from the pavilion. The club's debts of over £30 were cleared by a benefit match played at Bramall Lane, but the club remained in abeyance for the rest of the season, the club secretary Captain Turner attending the Derbyshire FA end of season meeting to bemoan the rise of professionalism that had been "the ruin of the Staveley club". The club did not renew its membership of the