Throughout (the late nineteenth century) first-class cricketers were divided into two types: amateurs and professional, often also called gentlemen and players.  Amateurs, or gentlemen, were wealthier men who played cricket as a pastime, but not to earn money, or at least not in theory (W.G. Grace was the most notable of the ‘shamateurs’, who made lots of money out of the game yet continued to call themselves amateurs.)  Amateurs often played for a few seasons in their early twenties, as an interlude between school and the rest of their adult lives, before properly starting their careers.  There were lots of jobs around in Britain’s wealthy economy for these young men once they had completed their stint at the wicket and they were often supported by money from their families too.  It meant that it was relatively easy for talented amateurs to pursue the game at the highest level.  Professionals, or players, by contrast, were from the lower social orders and were paid to play, and often did so for as long as they could: it was their livelihood.  They were  the workhorses of the county teams, while it was the amateurs who generally provided the flair.  There were exceptions, of course, but the majority of amateurs were there to bat, and be heroes.

The background to this age of exciting amateur batsmen was the increase of cricket coaching within public schools, which began at the end of the 1880’s to produce a number of batsmen whose play was characterised by adventure, wristy offside drives and cuts and a belief in playing an aesthetically pleasing and aggressive form of the game.  These amateur batsmen, far more than their cricketing forerunners even, including W.G. Grace, were the peter Pan’s of the cricket world, who were enjoying the game for its own sake rather than necessarily the winning of it.  This was about playing the game in its true spirit, as they saw it, probably to do with their youth as much as their amateur status.  As Patrick Morrah, in ‘The Golden Age of Cricket’ writes:

These young cricketers personified the era that was now beginning.  They possessed a dash and insouciance that had been lacking in even the best of t heir predecessors.  They were true amateurs; they played cricket because they liked playing cricket; they went their own way and they cared neither for averages nor for public criticism.

The division of dashing amateur and workaday professionals enforced the existing social distinctions in late Victorian and Edwardian English society  Richard Holt writes that “In cricket the classes and the masses seemed by mutual consent to occupy their rightful respective places whilst the Empire was strengthened by sporting contacts.  Professionals might provide muscle and consistency but amateurs were supposed to have the flair, the sense of command, the wider vision and aesthetic appreciation.  Cricket united social classes, and it became universally followed.  It seems remarkable from the modern perspective that amateurs and professionals could play side by side at the same level of the game.

from Kevin Telfer ‘Peter Pan’s First XI’ Hodder and Stoughton, London 2010
More next week