Cricket (Lyttelton, 1898)/Chapter 4
IV
GENTLEMEN AND PLAYERS
The two designations, Gentlemen and Players, ought to need no description or definition, but as a matter of fact they do. A gentleman we should naturally understand to be a man who plays the game for the love of it, receiving neither fee, reward, nor expenses. If he played for a county he would try and play as often as he could, partly for keenness of the game, partly from a patriotic desire to do his county a good turn. He would play for the enjoyment of the thing, would not care for his average, would follow no table of statistics, and, if an old University man, would refuse to play anywhere on the day of the University match.
The professional, on the other hand, having to make his living by the game, would wish to succeed, not only because he loved the game, but also because he wished to keep his place in the county eleven, to be chosen, perhaps, for the great ten-guinea match, and, generally, because to be successful from a pecuniary point of view it is necessary to succeed as a cricketer also. If a professional does not belong to a tolerably well-known county eleven, it is almost absolutely essential that he should be a bowler, for an engagement to a school is not to be got unless the professional can bowl. To be incapacitated and unable to play, means, to the professional, loss of income. He does not like to be hit over the fingers, and if he is wise he will lead a temperate and steady life. And to his credit it must be said that the professional of to-day is far better in that respect than his predecessor, and, speaking generally, he plays the game like a professional and not like a gentleman. I do not mean that in an unpleasant sense, but the professional bat will play steadier, and will most likely not have so attractive a style.
I have briefly described the natural and perhaps ideal definition of what the gentleman and the player should be; but the development of the game has brought about a great change in the respective positions, some of which are inevitable and not altogether for the worse, while others, I think, are both bad for the individual and for the game. Money in this, as in most other departments of life, is the root of all the mischief. A county to earn gate-money must win matches. To win matches they must have first-rate players, and if these players are not reared and trained in the county, they must be bought from outside. The amateur who plays for his county has so much pressure put upon him to play by the committee, for fear of losing a match without him, that he is almost forced to accede to the request, and, as a consequence, unless he is possessed of considerable private means, he must receive expenses. What is received by one amateur must for obvious reasons be received by all; and thus an amateur, having to live up to his position, receives as much for his expenses as a professional for expenses and salary. This state of things does not seem exactly in harmony with old-fashioned views of what an amateur should be; but for my part I think, for county matches at any rate, that it is an unavoidable evil. But every element of public opinion ought to condemn any payment except for county matches, and perhaps University matches away from home. Personally, I dislike tabulated statements of number of points, percentages, and all those complicated tables and calculations, and the name of champion county, but this is an age when such things seem a necessity. We must all be lowering a record, and the consequence is, that the competition among counties has lately become one of the fiercest and keenest struggles in cricket. No county can afford to lose a man, and if England and Australia play an international match, the date of the match is regulated so that no first-class county match shall clash with this important fixture. If this is the spirit of county cricket, it will at once be seen that an amateur, who may be keen to play as an amateur, is placed in a difficult position. He may be well off and not in the least desirous of having his expenses paid, but in the same county is often found another amateur whose services are equally indispensable, but who cannot afford to travel a hundred miles and incur hotel expenses; and what in such cases can a county committee do? It can either dispense altogether with the poor amateur's services, in which case the county loses a good man and very likely the match, or his expenses must be paid. The committee, in these days of fierce rivalry, will take the latter course, and it follows that the rich amateur must get his expenses paid also. The one amateur may be poor, but he is a gentleman with proper pride, and he will not for an instant tolerate a position which makes such an invidious distinction between him and his richer colleague; and thus is brought about the state of things, that in county matches all amateurs are paid their expenses. Up to this point I am reluctantly, I admit, forced to the conclusion that expenses must be paid; and I also think that for a Colonial tour, and for foreign University matches, expenses must also be paid to amateurs. It is no good taking a bad eleven to Australia, and only a casual amateur can go there at his own expense; while in foreign University matches, there are many undergraduates who cannot afford to play away from their University, and as these matches must be played, so must the players get their expenses.
It is, however, notorious that there are several men playing as amateurs who have gone far beyond these limits, and for my part I think that all amateur cricketers and bonâ fide professionals have good reason to protest against such a system. Why should one amateur get a large fee for expenses to play in the great matches—Gentlemen v. Players for instance? His proper pride ought to debar him from accepting any sum for a match with such a title. Why should another amateur receive a lump sum at the end of the season, which appears in the audited accounts as "bonus to Mr. So-and-so"? Why should any amateur have a benefit match exactly the same as a professional, except that in the latter case it is called a "benefit," in the former a "complimentary" match, the whole balance of the gate-money in each case being handed over to the bénéficiaire? This sort of thing has gone on so long that I suppose some consideration must be shown for vested interests, but I earnestly hope that in no new instance shall we see such things recur. I hold no brief for the professionals, but I cannot see why the Australians, who are all professionals, should walk into the chief rooms of the pavilion and be banqueted at the expense of the Marylebone Club, while the English professional is condemned to take the lower room. We have actually seen during this year's visit of Stoddart's Eleven to Australia, a prominent Australian cricketer refuse to play in the test matches because he was not sufficiently paid, and it transpired that £150 was the sum paid to sundry players for five matches. The Australians have, man for man, made far more money in England than our English professionals have in Australia; and from a social point of view both should be treated alike—with hospitality and welcome—but alike. The proper ideal is that there ought to be two, and only two classes—Gentlemen and Players—with no hybrid mixture of the two.
There is one other point of view in which the modern system of gate-money, champion county, &c., has been productive of much evil, viz., that everything goes to the county which has the longest purse, so as to cause a jumbling up of counties that is positively bewildering. A rich county like Surrey or Lancashire scour the country and buy cricketers whom their poorer neighbours cannot afford to keep; and a professional, having to earn his living, is only too glad to be bought by a first-class county to play first-class cricket, and, if lucky, to get a good benefit. All committees practise this except Yorkshire, Nottingham, and Derbyshire, and one cannot help having an honourable regard for these three counties in consequence. The queer thing about the whole matter is, that a crowd like the Surrey crowd, who grow so frantically keen during the progress of a county match, is seen to be just as keen for their county to win, composed as the eleven often has been of men purchased from all parts of England, and having no connection with Surrey by birth, as Yorkshire, Notts, and Derbyshire are for the success of their genuine natives. In this connection, Surrey would have been nothing if it were not for Lohmann, born in Middlesex, Lockwood and Sharpe in Notts, Beaumont in Yorkshire, Hayward in Cambridge, Henderson in Monmouth, Wood in Kent, Baldwin in Suffolk, Lees in Yorkshire, and several more; while Sussex, in their county eleven, have men from Notts, Staffordshire, Australia, and India. The modern professional, therefore, plays for his county if the committee, in the first instance, discover him, and, in the next, have the money to keep him; if they have not he is open to the highest bidder. The objection to this is the same as in the case of the League Association football—the rich counties despoil the poorer of all their promising players, and filthy lucre rules the day.
The annual match at Lords between the Gentlemen and Players is the great match of the year. Speaking for myself, it shares with the University match the chief honour for genuine play, and both matches have the stamp of antiquity and historical interest on them. The Gentlemen and Players match practically has been played ever since cricket began, the first match having been played in 1806. There have been variations in odds, owing to the greater strength of the Players, but this will never occur again, and the struggle has for years been worthy of the name. In old times, and, indeed, till recently, a certain style was characteristic of each team: the amateurs batted in more attractive if less safe style than the professionals. They played a fast, forward, driving game, and though both used to cut, this stroke seemed more favoured among the Players than among the amateurs. Grace, of course, is left out of the question. At the present moment, however, the difference in style is not so obvious. Hayward, for instance, plays in real amateur fashion, so do Tunnicliffe and Baker. So many matches are played now that the Oval match has lost much of its interest, owing to the fact that it is difficult to get a decent eleven for the amateurs; and it is to be hoped that this match will be discontinued sooner than be played as it is now.
In bowling the Players have always had a great advantage. In very early days the Gentlemen used often to take one or two of the best professionals to make the match more even, but even then the Players nearly always won. It was not till 1843 that the Gentlemen scored a one-innings victory; while between 1822 and 1842 they did not bring off a single win, though they had some odds more than once. These two victories in 1842 and 1843 were largely the work of the famous Alfred Mynn, perhaps the best bowler the Gentlemen have had. Alfred Mynn was a hero—a huge man, a hard hitter, famous in single-wicket matches, a lover of the game, and the idol of Kent. History repeats itself. Mynn was a gentleman farmer, and, like several others of that profession, lost his money, was frequently in debt, and used to go to prison, according to the law of those days. When a great match came to be played, his debts used to be somehow liquidated, and his release generally was timed so that his presence in the match was assured.
In 1846 William Clarke, the famous lob bowler, aged forty-seven, and George Parr, aged twenty, played for the Players, both for the first time. Slow bowlers can bowl to a greater age than fast. At the present day, except W. G. Grace, no cricketer so old as forty-seven plays first-class cricket. Both Clarke and Parr were Nottingham men, and Clarke had played for thirty years before he played in this great match. The great Lillywhite, when he was fifty-three, took 12 wickets for 96 runs—which, it is safe to assume, will never be done again. George Parr seems to me, judging by his scores, to have been from 1853 to 1863 the best and certainly the most consistent bat in England; and during that time the Gentlemen never secured one victory, though in 1857 was played a famous match wherein Reginald Hankey played an historical innings of 70. So grand was this innings that it still survives in the memory of those who saw it as one of the great innings of the century. The Players were very strong during the period from 1850 to 1864—Parr, Hayward, Carpenter, Daft, and Caffyn being the most notable bats, with Wisden, Jackson, Willsher, and Wootton prominent as bowlers. But about the year 1865 there was a schism in the professional ranks. Without going into detail, it is sufficient to say that many northern players refused to play, and the professionals for several years could not play their best eleven. This was one, but not the main cause why after 1864 the Gentlemen had a great run of success. In 1865 the Gentlemen won at Lords for the first time since 1853; George Parr played his last and Grace his first match, and a revolution in cricket began. The Players for some reason began to fall off greatly in batting; but Grace was the mainspring of the strength of the amateurs, and in these matches he established records that will never be equalled. At Lords there have been, since 1850, twenty centuries obtained, and of these Grace has made seven. At the Oval, out of seventeen centuries, Grace has made four, while on other grounds Grace has made four out of nine hundreds. Up to 1874, taking Lords and the Oval, the Players lost twelve matches in succession, mainly owing to Grace.
I have briefly touched upon these matches, and it is to be hoped that in future one match a year will be played, and that on Lords, as the still old and historical ground. The Players rightly get paid higher for this match than for any other, and everything ought to be done to make it the goal of every cricketer's ambition to be selected. There has been a levelling up in the two sides. In former years, though grand cricket was shown, up to 1865 the Players were too strong; between 1865 and 1877 the boot was on the other leg; and in batting, bowling, and wicket-keeping, the two sides are now more even than they have ever been before, though, of course, in bowling the amateurs are weaker. But it is a match too good to have more than once a year, and it seems to be the only game where amateurs and professionals can meet on even terms with no social vexations and troubles.