CHAPTER VII

AMATEURS AND PROFESSIONALS

By the HON. R. H. LYTTELTON

It would not appear to be a difficult task to make a clear and accurate definition of the two common words found at the head of this chapter. Forty years ago the making of such a definition would have been easy, and if we could regard things from an ideal point of view, it would be easy now. There are, however, so many difficulties at present in the way, so many changes in the carrying on of the game of cricket, so much acquiesced in which formerly would not have been dreamt of, that the old boundary line has been obliterated—all is confusion, and in too many cases there can hardly be said to be any difference or distinction between the amateur and professional in these days in the world of cricket.

It is strange that such should be the case, and it is also strange that these difficulties should exist so much more in the case of cricket than any other game. Whether this always will be the case appears to be doubtful. In the case of rowing there seem to be dangers ahead, and perhaps in the world of football also. But if I am not misinformed, the rowing authorities are not troubled in the matter as far as this country is concerned. It is owing to the fact that in America there do not appear to be the same regulations on this vexed question as in England—and the American invasion of England includes the chief prizes of Henley as well as the tube railways of London. The rowing authorities have a very difficult task before them. To come to a right decision, and yet not to offend the feelings of a nation we all respect, and have every wish to be, from a sporting point of view, on good terms with, is by no means an easy task, but I can only hope that a satisfactory decision will be attained.

Cricket, however, seems to stand altogether on a different footing to any other game. The boundary line between the two classes of amateurs and professionals has become blurred and indistinct, if indeed it has not entirely disappeared. As far as I know, no such state of things exists in other games, such as golf, tennis, football, or billiards. The reason why this is so seems to be twofold. The first is that if a man wants to play as much cricket as he likes he must practically devote five months of the year to nothing else. A match takes three days to finish, and the whole of each day is taken up by the game, and in this respect cricket stands alone. You may play golf or tennis every day if you have the opportunity; but two or three hours is enough for this, and the rest of the time may be spent in the counting-house. First-class cricket, however, now is of so exacting a nature that it really amounts to this, that nearly half the year must be wholly devoted to the game, and comparatively few amateurs can afford to do this. The other reason is somewhat on a par with the experiences of rowing men, and is because of the Australian invasion. International cricket between this country and Australia has come to stay, and it is much to be hoped this will always remain. Nothing in cricket is so interesting, and no other matches contain so many exciting elements, and in no other class of match is such a high standard of skill shown. In Australia, however, there does not seem to be any very clear distinction between the amateur and professional. In 1878, when they first came to England, the two Bannermans and, I think, Midwinter were classed as professionals, the rest as amateurs. In subsequent years there was no distinction drawn, and without going too minutely into the merits of the case, they are now all called amateurs. It may not be obvious what difference this makes to English cricket, but nevertheless on more than one occasion there has been friction, and it is notorious that the bone of contention is to be found in the fact that the English professionals have a somewhat well-founded idea in their minds that the Australian cricketers are really professionals like themselves, and they should in both countries stand on the same footing.

It is necessary, however, that some comparison be made of the conditions that existed thirty years ago, with the state of things now. This is a delicate and thorny subject, and it is almost, if not quite, impossible to avoid treading on corns; but the matter is a critical one for the welfare of the great game, and some clear understanding should be arrived at, and to attain this the public should know all the facts, that they may come to a right opinion.

It has been said that a definition of the words amateur and professional forty years ago would have been easy, and this is true. The question of money for the amateur was purely a personal one for himself. He played cricket according to his means. If he was of a sufficiently high class, and was qualified to play for a leading county, he played on the home ground if his business, if he had one, allowed him, and if he could not afford railway and hotel fares, he did not play the return match, it may be two hundred miles away. No doubt there were far fewer matches in those days, for Surrey, the chief county in the ‘sixties, only played on an average ten or eleven matches a year. For an amateur of Surrey to have played in all these matches was no doubt a tolerably arduous task, but it was not an impossible one. If the first-class amateur could not afford to play away from the neighbourhood of his home, he simply declined to play. The reason was obvious, but tact forbade the cause being inquired into, and the amateur was not thought any the worse of on this account. No doubt cricket was not in one sense the serious thing it is now. There were no carefully compiled and intolerably wearisome tables of statistics that drown one in these days; nevertheless there was just as much keenness for success, but championships and records did not constitute the _summum bonum_; it was the genuine sport that was chiefly considered. In other words, the game was generally carried on, in the best sense, in more of the amateur spirit than now, and this notwithstanding the fact that far more so-called amateurs play first-class cricket now than formerly. There was more cricket in matches of the class of Gentlemen of Worcestershire against Gentlemen of Warwickshire; the famous touring pure amateur clubs, such as Quidnuncs, Harlequins, I Zingari, and Free Foresters, played as they do now; and there were as many club matches played by the M.C.C. and Surrey clubs as were in those days wanted, and in these the amateur was able to take his part.

The ambition of every player in these days is to reach such a measure of skill as to earn him a place in the picked eleven of England against Australia, and very properly is this the case. To represent the Gentlemen against the Players at Lord’s is still the goal of many, but not so much now as it was. For a University man a place in his University eleven is as keen an object of ambition now as it used to be, and though the bowling may be weak and the fielding not so good as it ought to be, still University cricket is the same as it always has been—the embodiment of the purest amateur spirit of the game. But forty years ago, to be selected to represent the Gentlemen or the Players, as the case might be, set the seal on both amateurs and professionals, in the same way as to be selected to play for England against Australia does now. The amateur came up cheerfully to share in the annual defeat that almost invariably awaited him; the bowling for most of them was too good, and his record, speaking generally, at Lord’s at any rate, would be laughed at by the modern critic, stuffed out as he is with centuries, statistics, and comparisons, but to be selected made him happy.

The reader may now naturally ask, When and how does the amateur of forty years ago differ from the amateur of the present day? The question will be discussed more fully later on, but the answer is simply this, that in former times no amateur ever received one penny for his services, whether disguised under the name of expenses or by the receipts of a benefit match, euphemistically called a complimentary match. Here at once is the difference, and for the present it is sufficient merely to state the fact, and file it, as it were, for future reference.

The professional of old was drawn from the same sources as he is now. He comes from the shop, from the factory, from the pit, and from the slum. He had by no means so much cricket as he has now in the way of first-class county matches, but he filled up his time, if he arrived at a certain height of skill, by playing a series of touring matches against local twenty-twos, and these matches, if they did nothing else, gave an impetus to local cricket. There can be no doubt, however, that an enormous change has taken place in the type of professional cricketer. The first-class modern player moves altogether in a higher plane. He earns far more money in populous centres, such as Bradford, London, and Manchester. He has been known to clear £2000 and more by a benefit match. A spectator coming on to Lord’s at five o’clock in the afternoon, during the annual match between Gentlemen and Players, might easily for a moment be uncertain which side were fielding. There could have been no mistake in old days. Older cricketers well remember Jemmy Grundy in an old velvet cap more fitted for the North Pole than an English cricket ground, such a cap as a poacher would wear. You can see prints of Hayward and Carpenter in spotted shirts and large belts and ties, and Jemmy Shaw bowling his hardest in a yellow shirt that did duty apparently for the whole summer. Now, without any disrespect to the amateurs, the professional is as smartly dressed as his opponents. He is clad in spotless white; he is smart; and, in fact, as far as appearance goes, he is an amateur, and good at that. Two reasons may be given for this. In the first place, he is more highly paid; in the next place, the great number of county matches brings him more frequently into contact with amateurs; and it is also true that county committees look more closely after the players than they did. The life of a professional is a very hard life in the way of work, and though a sound batsman, who is of steady habits, like poor Shrewsbury, can play for a long while, the fast bowlers are overweighted with the constant labour of bowling on too perfect wickets, and they cannot keep their pace and skill for much more than six or seven years.

The professionals who are not good enough to play for a first-class county have by no means so good a time. They get engaged by clubs such as are found all over South Lancashire and in the West Riding of York, and they bowl for several hours all the week to members of the club at the nets, and on Saturdays play for the club in league matches. The results of these matches are tabulated in the local newspapers and in the sporting papers published on Sundays, and in their own district cause no end of excitement. The end of the season finds one of these clubs champion of the local league; and cricket is carried on very much like football in this respect. There are senior and junior leagues, there are Pleasant Sunday afternoon leagues, and in each of them there exists a carefully considered system of tables and elaborately calculated records of averages, and the leading cricketers, like the leading football players, are heroes. The game, however, as played in such matches, is of a distinctly lower type, and if report speaks truly, the umpires have often more than their proper share in determining the issue of the match. The professional supplements his income in other ways. He generally supplies bats and balls and other cricket materials, and sometimes, if he is a man of business, he establishes himself finally in a shop, more frequently in a public-house, and settles down for life.

The descriptions of the amateur and professional as given above are accurate enough, and many of us who can remember the former state of things probably think that, in comparing the epoch of 1860 to 1870 with that of 1892 to 1902, the condition of things was better, as far as the amateur is concerned, in the ‘sixties, and worse for the professional, and that now the position is exactly reversed. An amateur should be either one thing or the other, but nobody can say in these days what he is. The change has taken place gradually, and began from causes that sprang into existence perhaps thirty years ago, and these we will now try to explain.

Nobody who has watched the game carefully can fail to be struck with the wonderful development of county cricket. The ideal county cricket really exists, speaking of first-class counties alone, in the three counties of Nottingham, Yorkshire, and, we think, Derbyshire. Regarded impartially, a county ought to be represented solely by county players, but as a matter of fact this is not the case anywhere but in Nottingham and Yorkshire. But in many counties are to be found gentlemen who like to have first-class cricket in their county, and a county cricket club is founded. The financial prosperity of the club depends in a great measure on the success of the county eleven, and if a county has three or four amateurs who materially strengthen the side, the committee make great efforts to secure their services all through the season. The natural result follows. The amateur is driven to confess that he cannot afford the expenses of travelling and living at hotels, and he must decline to play. The winning of matches being the golden key to financial prosperity, the committees have been driven to adopt a system of paying the amateur money, that their counties may play their best elevens, and the first step in obliterating the boundary line that should exist between the amateur and professional has been taken, and what thirty years ago was done in one or two instances is now a matter of universal practice.

I am now for the moment making no comment; only stating a fact. As far as the balance-sheet of the county club is concerned, you cannot assume that the club can run its eleven cheaply by playing amateurs, who in truth cost the committee as much per head as the professionals. It would involve too much worrying into detail, and might lead to other harmful consequences, to get exact statements of the cost of railway tickets, etc.; so there is a fixed payment in a majority of cases given to every amateur, and this fixed payment is on a sufficiently generous scale to enable many an impecunious amateur to devote his services to his county. Nor is this the only way of providing livelihoods for skilful amateurs. There has to be, of course, a secretary, and you can either appoint a cricketer to this post, and provide him with a clerk who can do the work while his employer is playing cricket, or else make the cricketer an under-secretary, both posts, of course, having a salary attached.[3] It is also, if report speaks truly, a matter of fairly common practice for employers somehow or other to find some employment for cricketers during the winter, of course at a salary, and it has therefore come to this, that many an amateur has found in the game of cricket a means of access to a livelihood. No distinction has yet been given between a complimentary match and a benefit; the result is much the same in both instances; the proceeds of gate-money, after deduction of expenses, are handed to the player for whom the match is played.

A short time ago there was a proposal, emanating, if I am not mistaken, from the Australian authorities, that the M.C.C. should undertake the arranging and selection of an English eleven to represent this country in a series of matches in Australia. The committee of the M.C.C. undertook the task, though not, it must be confessed, in a very sanguine spirit. Their labours did not last long. Difficulties met them on the very threshold, and these difficulties were entirely on the ground of the amateurs’ expenses. Now it must be assumed that, if the principle of paying amateurs’ expenses be allowed, there ought to be no difficulty in the way of settling with amateurs. A manager has to go out; why should not he take all the tickets, pay the coaching and railway expenses and hotel bills, receive the proper share of the gate-money, and deliver the amateur safe back in his own country without the payment to the amateur of a penny? The word expenses has a well-defined and proper meaning, known to everybody. It represents the actual cost to a player of living, travelling, and playing, from the moment he leaves this country to the moment he sets foot in it again; but it is perfectly certain that, if left to the amateur to make a sort of private bargain, other and improper developments will take place, and it is notorious that they do.

Now let us consider for a moment the position of affairs, as far as this question of amateurs and professionals is concerned, in the case of Australia. As was said before, there was some sort of discrimination between the two in the first Colonial eleven in 1878. Both the Bannermans, as noted above, were avowedly professionals, and Midwinter also, if I remember rightly, and perhaps one or two others. But the bulk were amateurs, and the mystic sign “Mr.” was placed before their names. If no authoritative statement is made, and no balance-sheet made public, nobody can be surprised if the facts are more or less conjectural. But for all that, rumour in this instance is no lying jade, and without fear of contradiction, I assert that many of the so-called Australian “amateurs” who have been to this country have made money over and above their expenses.[4] Let nobody be misled, or assume from this that any stigma attaches to any of these Australian players; it is not their fault, but some may complain of the system. The profession of a cricketer, the calling of a professional, is in every way an honourable and good one. What puzzles so many of us is that, this being the case, so many should adopt the profession, but deny the name. They seem to prefer the ambiguous position of a so-called amateur to the straightforward, far more honourable one of a professional. This is not the case in other professions. Take the case of the dramatic career. There are many actors and actresses of more or less high social standing who have been driven by their love of the work and skill to adopt the calling of an actor. There is no ambiguity about it. They become what they are. They do not call themselves amateurs and receive salaries under the guise of expenses, which is exactly what cricketers do; and many of us ask ourselves, what is the reason of this?

To this question all that can be said is that circumstances have so changed that what was easy to define formerly is difficult now. It may be impossible to have the same rules and regulations now that used to exist forty years ago. But even if this is true, there can be no doubt that in these days a most unhealthy state of things prevails. It is bad for the nominal amateur, it is bad for the game, and it is bad for the country. Cricket is the finest game ever invented, but it is after all only a game, and it is wrong that things should have developed in such a way that amateurs become professionals in all but the name, and that gate-money should be the real moving spirit and ideal of all county clubs. To be prosperous financially a county must win matches, to win matches you must get the best possible county eleven, therefore the best amateurs as well as professionals must be played; and if these amateurs cannot afford the time and the money to play, why, then, they must be paid, and paid accordingly they are. That this is the case now everybody knows, and it seems strange that the greatest game of the world should be the one game where such things occur. No complaint need be made of the Australian system, except in this, that players who are in fact professionals should be treated as such. We are always glad to give them every welcome and show them every hospitality; nevertheless, they should have the same treatment and stand on the same footing that our professionals do when they visit Australia. In the same way, if any player feels himself unable, at the invitation of the M.C.C., to go out to Australia, because he is only offered the payment of the actual cost of travelling and living, and afterwards goes out under some private arrangement, he should be treated and recognised as a professional. It is an old proverb that you cannot eat your cake and have it, and if the modern amateur does not care, on social grounds, to become a professional, then let him honestly refuse to play cricket if he cannot afford to play on receipt of his bare expenses only. Richard Daft, in old days, found himself in the same dilemma, and grasped the nettle and became a professional, and justly earned the respect of all for so doing.

Put briefly, in these days the state of things is this. A large number of amateurs directly and indirectly make something of a livelihood by cricket, and yet they are recognised as amateurs. Such cricketers are those who, under the guise of expenses, get such a sum that after paying these expenses leaves something to be carried over, as Mr. Jorrocks called it. A few others do things on a far more lordly scale. They have complimentary matches given them by their counties; in other words, they have benefits like many of the leading and deserving professionals, but still they are called amateurs; and whether it is correct to call a class of men one name, when they are obviously and openly something different, is perhaps a matter of opinion, but for my