Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- A guide to prices, 1870–1914
- Part I An overview
- Part II The development of professional gate-money sport
- Part III Sport in the market place: the economics of professional sport
- Part IV Playing for pay: professional sport as an occupation
- 12 The struggle for recognition
- 13 Earnings and opportunities
- 14 Close of play
- 15 Not playing the game: unionism and strikes
- 16 Labour aristocrats or wage slaves?
- Part V Unsporting behaviour
- Part VI A second overview
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - Close of play
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- A guide to prices, 1870–1914
- Part I An overview
- Part II The development of professional gate-money sport
- Part III Sport in the market place: the economics of professional sport
- Part IV Playing for pay: professional sport as an occupation
- 12 The struggle for recognition
- 13 Earnings and opportunities
- 14 Close of play
- 15 Not playing the game: unionism and strikes
- 16 Labour aristocrats or wage slaves?
- Part V Unsporting behaviour
- Part VI A second overview
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Constant insecurity was the hallmark of a career in professional sport. Every day the professional sportsman faced the possibility that there would be no work tomorrow: losing in a tight finish, a poor afternoon in the field, being the victim of a nasty tackle could all lead to non-selection. Accentuating the anxiety was the annual trauma of contract renewal, for few employers in the sports industry were willing to ‘guarantee’ work for more than a year. In horse-racing a few outstanding riders managed to obtain retainers for a two- or three-year period, but most were for a single season. The majority of jockeys, however, did not hold retainers and had to join the demeaning, and often demoralising struggle for mounts on a day-to-day basis. In soccer the retain-and-transfer system operated on an annual basis - in 1891 the Football League Management Committee specifically forbade the signing of players for more than one season at a time - and, if not retained, the unwanted footballer had to hope that some other club would be willing to pay for what was a rejected product. Sheffield Wednesday did concede one of their players a two-year contract after he had been a first-team regular for a couple of seasons, but when this led to further demands a board decision was made not to sign any player for longer than twelve months. Cricketers, too, generally obtained only annual contracts, sometimes with a guaranteed number of matches, though in 1898 Willie Quaife, Warwickshire's star batsman, after several requests and a threat to go to league cricket, persuaded the county to grant him a five-year engagement.
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- Information
- Pay Up and Play the GameProfessional Sport in Britain, 1875–1914, pp. 227 - 238Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988