The professional paradox of English county cricket: Loyalty, finance, and the illusory 'native eleven'

“ A game is a game, and if it is a good game, we who love it consider that it deserves something more than casual and ephemeral treatment; hence we throw ourselves into it heart and soul, and those who like to see heart-and-soul work have only to go to the nearest county ground on a match day to see how energy and rivalry can, on the principle enunciated above, turn a game into a no-game.
Nor is it illogical at this point to assume that county cricket is to us the highest popular embodiment of our pastime ”

“ English county cricket is now the most firmly established cricketing institution in the world, but in its earlier stages it owed much in different counties to enthusiastic individuals and famous cricketing families whose energies were devoted to its The Graces and Gloucestershire. ”

“ The fact is incontrovertible, whatever the cause may be, but to most of those who have watched the course of cricket events, the progress of county cricket will present itself as the primary cause of the progress of the game as a whole. At the same time, there is a fair field left for those who choose to maintain that the impetus given to county cricket is really due to the rapid spread of the game itself and the attendant enthusiasm of its admirers ”

“ In 1746 Kent again plays England, and wins by a short neck, i.e. by one wicket, while Sussex and Surrey seem great rivals; Surrey, indeed, beats England three years later, and in 1750 loses to Kent by 3 runs, but wins the return by nine wickets. From the names quoted, it is evident that cricket flourished in the south rather than in the north; but cricket was not unknown in the big manufacturing shires, for we find that Manchester and Liverpool were then, as now, desperate rivals, as were Sheffield and Nottingham. ”

“ Small's downfall is not remarkable. However, though Hambledon was the best club and Hants the best county, England was too strong to be tackled single-handed. Surrey first met Kent in 1772, and beat the county of cherries and hops, having previously done the same for Hants, though in the latter case the nuisance of "given men" crops up on both sides; yet such games were clearly popular, strength being thereby equalised, for we find numerous matches between Hambledon and England in which the former club was supported by the presence of outsiders. ”

“ It seems to me that the growth and systematization of general cricket are due to the growth and systematization of county cricket, and the emulation which accompanied its increase. The counties, having set their hands to the plough, were in no mood to look back; those which, as exceptionally strong, were rated first-rate, set themselves to see that no weakness on their part should cause them to be degraded to the ranks ”

“ I have suggested that we owe the increase of cricket to the growth of county cricket, and the reasons are not far to seek. When once a county is included in the first class, or aspires to it, its first effort is to enlist all its available talent, and as the reward of the great cricketer is no mean one, whether that reward come in the shape of reputation and amusement to the amateur, or of good red gold to the professional, the aim and ambition of every promising player and of the club to which he belongs is to get at least a fair trial in the higher spheres of the game. ”

“ Cricket is now a very serious affair; the struggle for supremacy among counties has reached a pitch of gravity that seems remarkable, considering that many counties are made up of players gathered in from all parts of England. Why an Oval crowd should be so desperately keen to see Surrey win a county match when Nottingham, Yorkshire, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Middlesex, have at different times been drawn upon to make up the Surrey eleven seems incomprehensible, but it is a fact. Human nature, as Squeers said, is "a rum un'," and I can't explain it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Committee have then to adopt every means in their power to win matches. If they are rich, like Lancashire or Surrey, they very likely employ agents to scour the country in search of bowlers—bowlers being usually the commodity counties are in want of. Every young bowler of about twenty years of age, who knows that he is possessed of skill in this department, is on the look-out to represent a first-class county. If he lives in such a county he will be selected at the beginning of a season to play for the colts against the county eleven ”

“ In these times of improved batting and perfection in grounds, three whole days have been decided on as the time within which every county or club must win, lose, or draw the match. The game is not to lose or to draw; it is to win; and the side that can win most matches in the time allowed is plainly the best side. And should a side make so many runs as to render it impossible to win if they make more, whereas if they get out they must almost inevitably win, and can scarcely lose, we consider it would not be acting up to the true principle of the game if it did not get out. ”

“ At the present day there are county clubs which rely mainly for their existence on the voluntary subscriptions and donations of their supporters, men whose only reward is the opportunity of seeing good cricket brought home to their own doors, and the promotion, expansion, and improvement of the game. Gate-money is of course an important factor in a club's receipts, but it is sheer nonsense, it is almost mendacity, to declare that the county cricket of today is played for gate-money and for nothing else. ”

“ County clubs dare not take a decided line about cricket reform, lest a shortening of the game might diminish the gate-money, and professionals do not speak out because they are forced to bow the knee to Baal. County clubs are therefore in this position: they must attract gates; to do this they must have a fine eleven; to get a fine eleven they must have amateurs, and these amateurs cannot play regularly without being paid, and so paid they are. The expenses of running a first-class county eleven are therefore very [208] great—so great, in fact, that few can stand the strain. ”

“ A modern professional who represents his county is partly a servant of the club, partly a servant of the public, and partly a skilled labourer selling his skill in the best market. He may or he may not have a local interest in the club he represents: that is another aspect of his case.
The introduction of spectacular cricket changed the basis of county cricket considerably. For many years the exhibition elevens and the counties played side by side, but gradually the former died out, and the new elements they had introduced into the game were absorbed into county cricket. ”

“ As for cricket, it is no good mincing words; we all know that many so-called amateurs are and have been professionals, have been paid indirectly if not directly, and have, in fact, lived by the game. I do not think that this is the case at golf, and I earnestly hope that it never will be. One reason, and a very substantial reason, against it is that golf is a game for individuals, cricket is for a club or county; gate money cannot be charged for one, while the other lives on it. ”

“ It is not, of course, every county that can manage its cricket en prince in the way indicated: that implies a heavy rent-roll, a handsome and dependable income, and perhaps a snug little sum in the 23⁄4 per cents; only rich counties can do things with a lavish hand, and find themselves able to spare a lucrative match that will produce a bouncing benefit for some deserving professional. Others have to look rather wistfully at the small roll of cloth from which their coat has to be cut, and have to curtail expenses accordingly ”

“ Men have got as much as 1,200l. from their 'benefit,' but, as a rule, a well-known man in a good county will only secure from 500l. to 600l. Should a professional show great merit in his county matches, either as bowler or batsman, he is chosen to play in the great matches, such as Gentlemen and Players ”

“ There is one drawback, and that is, that if a real native professional of high merit and skill be found in these counties, instead of devoting the remainder of his life to his native county, he is tempted away by the magic gold of Surrey, Lancashire, or some other first-class county. He has got to earn his living, and it is not in human nature that he should refuse an opportunity of earning five pounds a match twice in the week, to say nothing of a prospective benefit at the end of his cricket career. ”

“ Cricket stands on its own pedestal, and it is good that it should. One of the troublous parts of cricket legislation has been the question of the residential qualification ot cricketers for their counties, and the manner of defining what bona fide residence is. It has been always recognised, I believe, that a man may play for the county in which he was born, or for the county in which he resides, though for "or" might have been written "and" as recently as 1873. ”

“ Some men consider that only the qualification of birth should be considered, so that only natives of a county should represent it; but, after all, this qualification is a mere accident as far as the individual himself is concerned; it would act hardly on a man born in a poor county—poor, that is, as a cricket-playing county; it would condemn many a first-class player to take little or no part in first-class cricket, which is the same thing as county cricket, and we might even have the anomaly of a county desiring, owing to its plethora of great players, to put two teams into the competition. ”

“ The bright side of this picture is that the cricket is of first-rate quality. There is a chance for every really good cricketer to find some county to provide him with an opportunity of distinguishing himself, and every year more and more close and fine matches are being played. The struggle for supremacy has never been greater than it is now, or more keenly fought out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [206] and that gate-money should be the real moving spirit and ideal of all county clubs. ”

“ Professionalism has increased, and it is an open secret that not a few players who appear before the public as amateurs derive an income under some pretext or other from the game. Cricket on the village green has in many parts of the country almost ceased to exist, while immense crowds congregate 441 to watch county matches in the great towns ”

“ 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. ”

“ Happily there is never the slightest whisper of suspicion against the straightness of our cricket players, and this is entirely owing to the absence of the betting element in connection with the game. It is an unfortunate fact that the tendency of first-class cricket nowadays is to swamp the amateur by the professional. Some of our best county teams are almost wholly composed of the latter class. ”

“ Cricket is a splendid recreation, and is, no doubt, good enough in its way. But it is not the kind of thing to which a man ought to devote himself. It is a game. Men ought not to get incomes out of games. They ought to be so employed that their means of livelihood is also a benefit to their fellow-men and to society. They ought to be helping to supply some part of the world's requirements. Cricket is not a waste of time as a recreation and a physical training, but as an occupation it is. ”