Nicholas Lane Jackson

Sports

In 1877, Jackson founded Finchley F.C., initially called "Finchley Petrels", and captained the club. He soon began officiating matches, serving as umpire alongside C. W. Alcock in an FA Cup tie between Old Etonians and Minerva in January 1879. Elected to the Football Association committee in 1880, he served as assistant secretary from 1881 to 1883, working with Alcock; one source noted that although Alcock was nominal secretary, "the burden of the work [was] borne by Jackson".

Jackson also founded Corinthian FC and the London Football Association, both in 1882. In January 1884, he investigated allegations that Preston North End had offered financial inducements to attract Scottish players, leading to the club's disqualification from that season's FA Cup. At the FA meeting in February 1884, Jackson successfully proposed a motion calling veiled professionalism and player importation "serious evils" and led a committee whose hardline anti-professionalism recommendations were adopted for 1884–85.

In March 1885, he supported a motion to legalize professionalism, serving on the committee whose recommendations led to FA approval of professionalism with restrictions in July 1885. Jackson contributed to founding the Lawn Tennis Association in 1888 and was an important referee at early tennis tournaments. He founded golf clubs at Le Touquet, Cabourg, and Stoke Poges, the last being England's first country club, and played golf into old age, allegedly holding a handicap of 9 at age 82.

His name was given to the "Lane-Jackson Championship", a curling title in Switzerland, and he invented a sport called "ringoal" using two sticks to throw a ring that had to be caught by an opponent.