Kevin Telfer in Peter Pan’s First XI argues that there is a distinction between sport and play.

“There’s a distinction to made between sport and play. It is intuitive to think of sport as being a form of play, largely because of the language used to describe participation in sport – ‘playing cricket’ for example.  But at the end of the nineteenth century sport in England began to acquire the characteristics of work more than those of play.  Organised sport is like work because it is task oriented and generally involves physical exertion, preparation, has a formal structure, organisation and a serious purpose.  Play, on the other hand, is all about leisure, diversion and fun with no other aim than enjoyment.  Joking is a legitimate part of play, but is often frowned upon in sport, an altogether more serious pursuit.  The Victorians and Edwardians had an ambivalent attitude to leisure, as work had come to be valued far more than play, yet due to the wealth of the country there was more leisure time than ever before.  Proverbs such as ‘ the devil makes work for idle hands’ are emblematic of the Victorian philosophy towards leisure.  In the industrialised era sport began to be taken far more seriously, and sporting organisations took on the same structures as businesses, ultimately becoming a multi-billion pound industry.  According to Richard Holt, in his essay, ‘Cricket and Englishness: The Batsman as Hero’, ‘Cricket was a form of highly organised competition in which the rules of play and its etiquette were elevated into a new civic ideal of vigour, integrity and flair.’  Cricket was being transformed into not only a more serious and commercial game, but also one loaded with ‘British values’ and ‘saturated with expansionist imperial and Darwinist concerns’: it was being politicised.  Yet there were still amateurs at the highest level, as well as teams . . . . who rebelled against the notion of cricket as anything other than a game to be played for the fun of playing.

To be continued – tomorrow Tefler looks at Amateurs and Professionals
from Kevin Telfer ‘Peter Pan’s First XI’ Hodder and Stoughton, London 2010