8 minute read
CRICKET
from The Chap Issue 112
by thechap
Cricket
THE GENTLEMEN VERSUS THE PLAYERS
The Chap’s Cricket Correspondent Sam Knowles gallops through the tale of Gentlemen v Players, finding that it is also a history of the British class system
Rrugby is said to be the most democratic of games, providing a meaningful role for anyone and everyone, whatever their height, pace and frequently substantial girth. It’s democratic in as much as it accommodates all sizes and shapes of humanity, from the gazelle-like ectomorphs in the backs to the buffalo’s strength and immovability of the endomorphs in the scrum. It also welcomes a broad spectrum of personality types, too, from the quicksilver double-dealer to the pedestrian honest John. But that’s another story.
THE BRITISH CLASS SYSTEM IN MICROCOSM
Cricket, by contrast, developed not as a broad
church to accommodate all physical specimens, but rather as the metaphorical sporting embodiment of the imperial British class system. Exported on the backs of expansionist adventurers, not only does the sun never set on countries that used to be coloured pink on British Empire maps, but the sun also never sets on a game of cricket, and – at time of writing – all the countries that have long since gained their independence from His and Her Majesty are of course much better at cricket than the English gents who invented and exported the game.
Nowhere is cricket as a microcosm of the class system more evident than in the tradition of the Gentlemen versus the Players. The Gentlemen were upper-class amateurs, dabbling with cricket as a way of crossing the chasm to hoi polloi; the working-class Players, meanwhile, attempted to earn their living through the game and received a stipend for playing, including in the regular fixture against the Gentlemen. Indeed, before the advent of international test cricket in 1877, the Gentlemen versus Players was the most prestigious fixture in the cricket calendar.
The Gentlemen were only entitled to claim expenses. They played for the love of the game and didn’t need to worry about something as unseemly as taking a fee. The nice distinction between Gentlemen amateurs and professional Players was delineated by the venerable Marylebone Cricket Club, and because it was – quite naturally – the Gentlemen who wrote the rules, the Gentlemen’s expenses are said often to have exceeded the fees paid to the Players.
Every town and village had its Gentlemen’s team, as I and several co-conspirators discovered when we sought to set up a veterans’ Sunday side in Lewes, East Sussex, in the early 2010s. The first literary reference to a ‘Gentlemen of Lewes’ cricket team was in 1753, a fact recorded with pride on our club crest. This is much to the chagrin of some of our regular opponents, including the country’s oldest independent family brewer, Harveys of Lewes; they can only boast a Georgian foundation date of 1790 – those Johnny-come-latelys!
In CHAP 109 (Autumn 2021) I told the story of one of the longest-established fixtures in sporting history, albeit played in the newest format – The Hundred: the Gentlemen of Lewes versus the Gentlemen of Firle. For in the pavilion at Firle, there’s a poster celebrating the 1851 fixture
between these two teams, yet the contest continues 171 years on. In proper tradition, however, the opening batsmen from the Gentlemen of Firle still play in top hats.
THE GENTLEMEN VERSUS PLAYERS SCOREBOOK: A NARRATIVE BY NUMBERS
On a national stage, the first recorded Gentlemen-Players rubber took place in 1806. It became a more-than-annual fixture in 1819 and continued, more or less uninterrupted but for two world wars, until 1962. Over the lifetime of the fixture, the Players were vastly more successful than the Gentlemen. Of the 274 games played in England, the Players won almost half, the Gentlemen less than a quarter – fully 12 fewer than the 80 fixtures that were drawn – while one, thrillingly, was tied. Set 150 to win by the Players at the Oval in 1883, the Gentlemen yielded to the clarion call of claret at their Pall Mall clubs and were skittled for an oh-so-nearly 149.
Lord’s was by far the most popular venue for the fixture, hosting more than half (142) of the games played in the long-running series. Next came The Oval (71), followed by Scarborough (38) – the host venue of the final fixture – Folkestone (10), and Hastings (7).
In the 20th century, the Players won 47 times, more than three times more often than the Gentlemen. 58 of last century’s games were drawn – including a tedious run of eight matches straight in the early 1930s – and the Gentlemen only won two fixtures post-World War II, both in 1953. The last recorded victory for the Gentlemen came in September of that year and included a doublecentury – 241, no less – from one Len Hutton, certainly a Gentleman but also very much a ‘P’ player and not, if we’re honest, all that amateur.
The same might be said for the Gentlemen’s 1899 skipper, one Wilfred Gilbert Grace, whose firstclass career yielded 54,000 runs, 124 centuries and more than 2,800 wickets. A gentleman, no doubt, but very definitely also a player. Grace holds the record of most appearances in the fixture, turning out a remarkable 85 times between 1865 and 1906.
Of the last 18 games in the fixture, seven were drawn and 11 yielded victories for the Players. The Gentlemen were clearly tiring of their regular game against their sporting betters. While the Gentlemen did, very occasionally, win this two-innings-per-side encounter by a margin, it was rarely by a country mile and hardly ever by an innings. The same was not true for the Players, whose greatest margin of victory was a staggering innings and 305 runs in 1934 at the Oval.
Despite the Players’ dominance, the fixture was characterised by a separation of the classes in more than just team selection. This is celebrated in the stern sign of admonition that remains at Lord’s to this day, which boldly insists: “GENTLEMEN v PLAYERS: Those taking part in the above match must observe the proprieties of the occasion. Separate entrys & dressing rooms are provided. The Gentlemen’s rooms being strictly out of bounds for the Players.” Kitchener-style cartoon hands point firmly left for the Gentlemen and right for the Players. A similar – if more dilapidated – sign is on display at the Bradman Oval in the Bowral in Australia, where W.G. Grace played in 1891, doubtless turning left for his dressing room.
What is perhaps most surprising is that the fixture – and the distinction between the Gentlemen and the Players – continued as long as until 1962. In the last game, England pace bowler ‘Fiery’ Fred Trueman captained the Players to victory over the Gentlemen by seven wickets. His opposite number, the Gentlemen’s Gentleman, was supposed to have been Ted Dexter, though coming down with a mystery illness meant he couldn’t play.
It was the MCC who called time on the fixture on the last day of January 1963, erasing the distinction between Gentlemen and Players and ushering in the modern era. All first-class cricketers were then deemed to be professionals – or Players – meaning there was no longer a role or a place for this fixture on the calendar. The definitive story of the dawn of modern English cricket – and the last ten years of GvP – is told in Lord Charles Williams’ Gentlemen & Players: The Death of Amateurism in Cricket. The author knew of what he wrote; not only did his Lordship play for Oxford alongside Colin Cowdrey, but he also turned out more than once for the Gentlemen in the game’s final decade.
WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? GENTS DON’T!
Almost 40 years after stumps were drawn in the Gentlemen versus the Players for the last time, the fixture caused fresh controversy on the British quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Stuck without lifelines but with an apparent stooge in the audience, coughing when he happened upon the correct answer, Major Charles Ingram was asked by host Chris Tarrant: “Gentlemen v Players was an annual match between amateurs and professionals of which sport: (A) Lawn tennis, (B) Rugby union, (C) Polo, or (D) Cricket?”
As the Major mused – with wistful imaginings of ancient cigarette cards – the supposed coughing accomplice can clearly be heard convulsing off-camera whenever he veers towards choosing cricket. After a dramatic few minutes, Ingram chooses the correct answer, winning £64,000 in the process (although as is well known, he was eventually stripped of both his winning and military titles, providing a rather neat fable for the end of droit de seigneur).
Gentlemen had no need to become millionaires; they’d been born into that status – or its equivalent before generations of compound interest. The advent of Kerry Packer, the World Series, T20 and the IPL tell of a sport transformed, where the Players’ ability is what sees them auctioned to become overnight millionaires and be handsomely rewarded for talent. The irony is, of course, that the Players were always superior to the Gentlemen. n
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Knowles is the Cricket Correspondent for The Chap. By day a data storyteller, on summer Sundays he is the co-re-founder, scorer and match reporter for the Gentlemen of Lewes Cricket Club. You can follow their exploits on Twitter @GoLCC_Lewes
