Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket
Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket was a long-standing distinction between participants who were paid – professionals – and those were not paid – amateurs. The divide was a large part of the cricketing landscape between the 1600s and 1962, when amateur status was abolished in England – the country where the system was most developed. Amateur cricketers tended to be drawn from the upper and middle classes and were generally only reimbursed for expenses, while professionals, largely drawn from people of working-class backgrounds were paid a salary by their clubs.
An annual Gentlemen v Players match was played between amateur and professional cricketers for over 150 years, with the final match occurring shortly before the abolition of amateur status. The divide presented itself in many ways, such as having separate dressing rooms, players having their names recorded differently on scorecards and the established convention that team captains be amateurs.
By the mid-twentieth century, the arrangement had come under attack, with widespread "shamateurism", where amateurs were being covertly paid. In 1962, the Marylebone Cricket Club voted to end amateur status and from 1963, all first-class cricketers in England were officially regarded as professionals.
While amateur status has formally disappeared, many writers have continued to debate its legacy and how elements of the divide have continued to affect the modern game.
Distinctions between amateur and professional status
On the face of it, the distinctions between amateurs and professionals in first-class cricket were their availability and their means of remuneration. The professional cricketer received a wage from his county club or, if he went on a tour, a contracted fee paid by the tour organiser. In both cases, there was the possibility of bonuses being earned. The amateur in theory received expenses only, again paid either by his county club or a tour organiser. Professionals were full-time players during the cricket season and would mostly seek alternative employment in the winter months. The amateur was not always a full-time player during the season and many played by choice as they typically had other means of income or support. Some amateurs, those in education being a common example, were part-time players of necessity as they could only commit to cricket during the school or university holidays. Those in other forms of employment relied for availability on occasional holidays or, in some cases, being given time off by their employers. There were employers who hired well-known cricketers for commercial prestige reasons and so were keen to see them take part in big matches.In terms of cause and effect, however, availability and remuneration were effects only. The real distinction between amateur and professional, encapsulated by the Gentlemen v Players fixture which was first arranged by Lord Frederick Beauclerk in 1806 and played annually from 1829 to 1962, was social status within the English class structure. Amateurs belonged to the upper and middle classes; professionals invariably came from the working class. It was perceived that the amateur held a higher station in life and was therefore a class apart from the professional. The outlook of the two classes contrasted in that most of the amateurs played primarily for enjoyment, while most of the professionals took the game, as their living, very seriously indeed. Of underlying importance to the concept of amateurism were the schools, universities and other centres of education in which cricket was played, both as a curricular and extracurricular activity. The public schools and the main universities produced most of the first-class amateur players and standards of amateur cricket rose during the 19th century through rivalry between the schools and then at university.
As early as the 17th century, there is evidence that sporting types among the well-to-do relished strong competition and welcomed the opportunity to play against the best performers, who tended to be working class and in time became the first professionals. Although the gentry were happy to play with and against the working class, they still retained a sense of social distinction and so, by the 19th century, the word "amateur" had taken on a peculiar meaning of its own in cricket terms that was redolent of social status and implied respectability. The amateurs insisted upon separate dressing rooms and, at some grounds, even a separate gateway onto the field. On scorecards, the amateur would be listed initials first and a professional teammate initials last: for example, P. B. H. May and Laker, J. C. In one notably laughable instance, when the professional Fred Titmus was walking out to bat, the public announcer stated that there was a mistake in the printed scorecards being sold at the ground: "F. J. Titmus should read Titmus, F. J."
The "Gentlemen and Players" distinction was a reflection of the higher status enjoyed by officers above other ranks in the British Army, and of employers above the workforce in commerce and industry. It therefore seemed natural to most 19th century English people, of all classes, to have a similar distinction in sport. This perception of amateurs as officers and gentlemen, and thereby leaders, meant that any team including an amateur would tend to appoint him as captain, even though most if not all of the professional players were more skilled technically. On occasion, as in the Yorkshire team of the 1920s, a ridiculous situation arose wherein the de facto captain was the senior professional and the nominal amateur captain "did what he was told". The idea of amateur captains only was applied to Test cricket from 1888. Some English touring teams to Australia until then had been all-professional, having been launched as private ventures, but England did not appoint another professional captain until Len Hutton in 1952 though, in the 1930s, Wally Hammond switched status from professional to amateur so that he could captain his country. Some of the amateur captains were unquestionably worth their places in England's Test team on the grounds of their technical ability.
Beginnings of amateurism (17th century)
The earliest definite mention of cricket is in a court case on Monday, 17 January 1597 in which John Derrick, a Queen's Coroner for the county of Surrey, and therefore a gentleman, bore written testimony as to a parcel of land in Guildford. Derrick, then aged 59, stated that when he was a schoolboy he and his friends had played cricket on the land. Records from the early years of the 17th century show that cricket, having apparently been a children's game, was increasingly taken up by adults and the first clear indication that the gentry were involved is in the record of an ecclesiastical court held in 1629. In this, Henry Cuffin, a curate at Ruckinge in Kent, was prosecuted by an Archdeacon's Court for playing cricket on a Sunday evening after prayers. He claimed that several of his fellow players were "persons of repute and fashion". For the next two centuries, the gentry saw cricket as a gambling sport akin to prizefighting and horse racing. The earliest mention of cricket-related gambling is in a 1646 court case that concerned non-payment of a wager. In 1652, another court case accused a gentleman called John Rabson, Esq. and other defendants who were all working class, revealing that cricket had crossed the social divide.From the start of the English Civil War, the Long Parliament banned theatres and other social activities that met with Puritan disapproval, but there is no actual evidence of cricket being prohibited, except as previously that it was not allowed on Sundays. For example, three men were prosecuted at Eltham in Kent for playing cricket on a Sunday in 1654. Oliver Cromwell had established the Protectorate the previous year, so the Puritans were fully in control, but the defendants were charged with "breaking the Sabbath", not with playing cricket. It is believed that Cromwell himself was an early gentleman participant, having played both cricket and football as a young man.
It was during the second half of the 17th century that, in Roy Webber's words, "the game took a real grip" especially in the south-eastern counties. The nobility withdrew to their country estates during the Commonwealth and were involved in village cricket as a pastime which, after the Commonwealth expired in 1660, they continued to indulge when they returned to London. The Restoration was effectively completed during the spring of 1660 and one of its immediate results was an increase in gambling, mostly by the gentry, on cricket and other sports. In Harry Altham's view, the same period "was really the critical stage in the game's evolution" with a kind of "feudal patronage" being established as the nobility took control of the sport, their interest fuelled by the opportunities for gambling that it provided, and this set the pattern for cricket's development through the 18th century. The post-Restoration period saw the first "great matches" as cricket evolved into a major sport, a significant aspect of the evolution being the introduction of professionalism. Members of the nobility and gentry who returned to London after the Restoration were keen to develop cricket and brought with them some of the "local experts" from village cricket whom they now employed as professional players. Altham wrote that within a year or two of the Restoration, "it became the thing in London society to make matches and form clubs".
In 1694, accounts of Sir John Pelham record 2s 6d paid for a wager concerning a cricket match at Lewes. The earliest known newspaper report of a first-class match was in the Foreign Post dated Wednesday, 7 July 1697:
"The middle of last week a great match at cricket was played in Sussex; there were eleven of a side, and they played for fifty guineas apiece".
The high stakes on offer confirm the importance of the fixture and the fact that it was eleven-a-side suggests that two strong and well-balanced teams were assembled. No other details were given but the report provides real evidence to support the view that "great matches" played for high stakes were in vogue in the years following the Restoration. One of the main cricket patrons at the time was Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, resident at Goodwood House in Sussex.
As the 17th century ended, cricket in the words of David Underdown was "embedded in the culture of many English social groups" – the aristocracy, the merchant class, the working class and even "the delinquents". The aristocracy was the group that advanced the cause of amateurism and did so, in several fields of activity, with the purpose of publicly asserting their political and social authority to emphasise, as Underdown said, "what they fondly believed was the popular nature of their rule". Their strategy was to portray themselves as regional and national leaders who nevertheless shared the habits and assumptions of their neighbours, and one of those habits was taking an active part in sport – not only by playing but in the main through conspicuous patronage. The willingness of aristocrats to mix with the working class on the cricket field may have helped to promote social stability; the historian G. M. Trevelyan wrote : "If the French noblesse had been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt".