Professionalism brought fresh complications for club administrators. Many friendlies were cancelled due to opponents' FA Cup or county cup matches taking precedence or clubs simply failing to honour a fixture in favour of a more lucrative match elsewhere. This made it hard for the clubs to pay players' wages on a regular basis. McGregor took action after seeing Villa matches cancelled, to the increasing frustration of the club's fans, on five consecutive Saturdays. On 1888, he wrote to the committee of his own club, Aston Villa, as well as to those of Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End and West Bromwich Albion, suggesting the creation of a league competition that would provide a number of guaranteed fixtures for its member clubs each season. Corinthian F.C. founder Nicholas Lane Jackson, writing in 1899, stated that McGregor took his inspiration from the existing league set-up used in American baseball, although McGregor himself cited the County Cricket Championship as his inspiration. McGregor's letter to the clubs read: