Gentlemen and Players

In the game's own language a "Player" was a paid professional, set against the unpaid "Gentleman", and the two words were social labels rather than descriptions of skill.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

An amateur was reimbursed for the cost of playing but drew no salary or match fee, and that, not his background, is what separated him from the professional in the regulations.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

Amateurs were given as "Mr P. B. H. May", professionals as "Laker, J. C." with the surname first, so the order of a man's own name on the card marked his status.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

The professional's surname came first, so reading Titmus out as though he were an amateur was a status error the club felt it had to put right on air.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

The split ran through the pavilion: separate dressing rooms, and at some grounds separate gates onto the field, so the two ranks came together only in the middle.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

Professionals were expected to be as deferential to amateurs as a servant to the master of the house, so the form of address was "Mr", while the amateurs called the pros by their surnames.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

From the late 1880s in Test cricket it was taken for granted that the side would be led by a Gentleman, and most counties held to the same rule.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · recall

The objection was social, not cricketing: a wage-earner was thought to lack the authority to give orders to Gentlemen, and one professional was held unable to lead another.

Source: Wikipedia, Len Hutton as England captain · applied

The two ranks coexisted for more than a century and a half; the distinction was only removed by an MCC vote taken in the winter of 1962.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

"Turning Player" or "going over to the Players" meant formally becoming a professional, taking a wage and losing the Gentleman's amateur standing.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

Rather than draw a wage, the amateur claimed "expenses" far larger than his actual outlay, so money reached him while the books still showed an unpaid Gentleman.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

A sinecure such as club secretary or assistant secretary provided a salary for little real work, letting a man draw a living from the county while still entered as an amateur.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

Amateurs including Andrew Stoddart and Walter Read came home from that tour in pocket, a plain case of the "amateur" drawing money from cricket.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

The 1879 inquiry into inflated expense claims cleared the men involved and led to no reform, a measure of how far the establishment would look past shamateurism.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

"Broken-time" money compensated a Gentleman for earnings given up while playing, and because it was tied to his outside salary it could far exceed a professional's match fee.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

At counties with several well-kept amateurs the expenses total could outrun the entire professional payroll, which is why "amateur" cricket was in places the more expensive kind to run.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

"Shamateur" fuses "sham" with "amateur" to name a man whose unpaid standing was a pretence.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

The distinction was between an amateur of independent means, who could afford to play for nothing, and one who kept the label only because hidden payments made it possible.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

The objection was to the hypocrisy: a system that looked down on the honest paid professional while quietly paying the Gentleman more.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

Post-war, private incomes large enough to sustain a real amateur were rare, most "amateurs" were being paid one way or another, and keeping the pretence going looked pointless.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · applied

Hutton's appointment in 1952 was the first time a professional was named permanent England captain, breaking a convention roughly sixty years old.

Source: Wikipedia, Len Hutton as England captain · recall

When Arthur Carr fell ill during the fourth Test of 1926, Hobbs took charge for the second and third days, the only professional to captain England between Arthur Shrewsbury in 1886-87 and Hutton in 1952.

Source: Wikipedia, Len Hutton as England captain · recall

Wally Hammond turned amateur in 1938, taking an outside company post, and captained England as a Gentleman, a move open only to a man who could arrange such a job.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

Lord Hawke said it at Yorkshire's 1925 annual meeting, responding to a newspaper article by the professional Cec Parkin arguing that Jack Hobbs should lead England.

Source: Wikipedia, Martin Hawke, 7th Baron Hawke · recall

Rather than hand the captaincy to a professional, clubs often played a modest amateur purely to lead, with a senior pro running the side in practice.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · applied

England regained the Ashes in 1953, their first recovery of the urn at home since 1926, a result that quietened much of the doubt about a professional leading the side.

Source: Wikipedia, Len Hutton as England captain · recall

A Gentleman was thought fit to command because of his class and schooling, while a wage-earner, however great a player, was held to lack the standing to give orders.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · recall

The stock argument was that one professional could not easily drop, rebuke or direct another with whom he shared a dressing room and a pay scale.

Source: Wikipedia, Len Hutton as England captain · applied

Hutton broke the rule at Test level, but several counties kept appointing amateur captains right up to 1962, so the practice lingered for another decade.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · recall

Passing over men like Hobbs and Hutton for years to protect a social rule was the clearest case of the amateur system weakening the England side on the field.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · applied

The inaugural Gentlemen v Players was staged at the old Lord's ground in July 1806, making it one of the oldest recurring fixtures in cricket.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · recall

There were about 274 matches; the Players won some 125 to the Gentlemen's 68, with the rest drawn and one tie in 1883.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · recall

Several Gentlemen v Players matches were played each year at different grounds, but the Lord's fixture in July was the prestige match and a de facto England trial.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · recall

To keep the game a contest the Gentlemen were at times allowed fourteen to eighteen players, given smaller wickets to defend, or lent "given men" while the Players stuck to eleven.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · applied

A "given man" was a professional added to the amateur XI to make the Gentlemen competitive, an open admission of the gap in playing strength.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · recall

W. G. Grace's arrival made the Gentlemen genuinely strong for the first time, and in his best years they won the fixture repeatedly instead of leaning on handicaps.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · applied

Selectors used the July Gentlemen v Players match at Lord's as a Test trial, so runs or wickets there were a recognised path into the England team.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · applied

Hobbs scored 266 not out for the Players against the Gentlemen at Scarborough in 1925, one of the highest individual scores the match produced.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · recall

The 156-year-old fixture closed at Scarborough in September 1962, the Players winning by seven wickets under Fred Trueman; amateur status was abolished by the MCC a few months later.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · recall

Once every first-class cricketer was simply a "cricketer" there was no amateur side to field, so the match had lost its subject and was dropped.

Source: Wikipedia, Gentlemen v Players · applied

The Advisory County Cricket Committee recommended the change late in 1962 and the MCC confirmed it, so that from the 1963 season the distinction was gone.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · recall

Both ranks were merged into one class of "cricketer", though in effect all were now professionals, since the amateur category had simply been removed.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Rewind to 1962: When players became cricketers · recall

The playing wage did not cover the year, so pros took winter work; in the mining counties many, Harold Larwood among them, went back to the pit.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

The county cap marked the line: capped players drew the senior rate and the top dressing room, uncapped men a lower wage and limited access to it.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

A county would award a senior pro one match plus a season of fundraising, and the proceeds, often the bulk of his life savings, were meant to see him through after he stopped playing.

Source: Wikipedia, Benefit season · recall

The Inland Revenue used James Seymour's 1920 Kent benefit as a test case, demanding tax on the proceeds; the dispute ran until 1927.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Wisden - Court on the boundary · recall

The Lords held the money was a mark of public gratitude for services already given, not a reward for future effort, so it was a gift and not subject to income tax.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Wisden - Court on the boundary · recall

Because the courts treated benefit proceeds as a tax-free gift, the professional received the money in full, which made a well-supported benefit a substantial retirement fund.

Source: Wikipedia, Benefit season · applied

Even as abolition neared, pros often had separate hotels, separate meals and separate entrances, and were addressed by surname, a servant-and-master pattern that outlived the pay distinction.

Source: Wikipedia, Professional and amateur status in first-class cricket · applied

With the ranks merged, the captaincy of every county was open on merit, and within a few years professionals were leading counties as a matter of course.

Source: ESPNcricinfo, Fifty years of the end of the amateur-professional divide · recall