Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 also, and gave every appearance of being indestructible. Crowds would gather at Forfar Station just to catch a glimpse of the Royal train as it passed through on one of its periodic trips to and from Balmoral. She got on well with the Czar and the Kaiser (who were after all her relatives) and peace in Europe looked assured. Her old enemy William Ewart Gladstone died in 1898. He had been Prime Minister four times and could never solve the problem of Ireland.

On the football field it was a decade of progress for Forfar Athletic. Football now became a very serious business. In 1888-9 an English League had been started. This was a new concept in which every team played each other home and away and points were awarded. In 1890-91 Scotland followed suit when a Scottish League was established for the big clubs in the central belt, and by the following season, Forfar found themselves along with Arbroath, Montrose, St.Johnstone, Aberdeen and three Dundee teams in a Northern Football League. Transport presented few problems for each of the locations were tolerably near a railway station.

Forfar did not start well in the Northern League, being no strangers to the bottom spot, but under the hard work and guidance of an enthusiastic committee and in particular Mr. James Black, the Loons rallied. The legalisation of professionalism in 1893 might have brought a few problems to small teams like Forfar who would not now be able to resist the depredations of the larger, big city clubs, but a more serious threat to the fragile existence of the young club came when the Strathmore Auction Company, the owners of Station Park, threatened to terminate the lease.

Forfar Athletic might have amalgamated with East End who played at Carseview Park (behind Station Park) or moved to a new site at the Steel Park, the Lochside or Lilybank, but thankfully, they managed to stay at Station Park. In November 1894 (with this threat still hanging over them) they played their biggest game to date when they travelled to Edinburgh to play the great Hibernian team at Easter Road in the Scottish Cup. The result was a fairly predictable 1-6 thrashing, but it was an example of how football was now expanding.

1895-6 saw a great Forfar triumph. The Northern League was won for the first time when Forfar pipped Arbroath by one point. The rejoicing was extensive, nowhere more so than in the public house of Mr.J.Fenton, in later days called the Caledonian Bar. Mr.Fenton seems to have indulged in an early form of sponsorship whereby he would give the club money in return for some of the players visiting his premises to talk to supporters. Photographs and trophies were displayed behind the bar, particularly the Northern League Trophy. Mr.Fenton would employ a youngster to walk around the town with sandwich boards saying "If you want a demonstration, come to Fenton's near the station".

Forfar also played in the Forfarshire League, the Forfarshire Cup and the Forfarshire District Charity Cup. Forfar did well enough in the other trophies but a major complex seemed to be developing about their repeated failure to land the prestigious Forfarshire Cup. They came close in 1897 but lost out to Arbroath after a Replay played at Carolina Port, Dundee, home of Dundee F.C. before they moved to Dens Park. Apparently 1,000 fans left Forfar by train to see that game – a figure which is probably genuine since four figure crowds were regular phenomena at home games.

A look at the names of players will show the traditional Forfar ones of Prophet, Gibb, Boath, Couttie and Shepherd. The team consisted of Forfar boys, and when Mr.Black decided that fresh talent was required and that some scouting was needed, he would go no further than the Market Muir or the Steel Park where a plethora of junior or juvenile games were in progress. "Blackie's here" would be the cry and everyone would try that wee bit harder hoping to impress the well known bachelor whose name and that of Forfar Athletic were now intertwined.

A particular rivalry had developed between Forfar and Arbroath. It was hardly surprising. Both towns were prosperous with good railway stations which transported the respective goods of jute and fish to English and even foreign markets. But Arbroath was a bigger town and resented the fact that the county of Angus was still called "Forfarshire", simply because Forfar was more central. When the two teams met, it was not unknown for there to be a few crowd disturbances among the less intelligent jute workers or fishermen.

Such disorder did little to endear football to the bigots who continued to fill the newspaper letter columns of local and national newspapers, lamenting the decline of Christian civilization thanks to vulgar games like football. Cricket was not quite so bad, for it was more sedate and played by gentlemen (i.e. sons of farmers and landowners) but football was a different matter, involving shouting and arguments. But the point was rapidly being reached as the end of the 19th century approached when the establishment would have to realise that football was winning the hearts of the working classes in a way that the Church never could. It was even eating into the moral backbone of the middle classes!

By 1900 in Forfar, there would be very few young men who would dare to admit that they did not like the game, or that they did not actively support Forfar Athletic.