Cricket Witness No 1 - Class Peace

25 Pre-Victorian Society And Sport sides-orientated matches, bets were being laid throughout play, not only on the result but, as in today’s spread betting, on passages of play and individual feats. It was all tempting enough to attract corruption, not unexpectedly so, given that the whole of Hanoverian society and politics was riddled with bribery and patronage. Some of the early sets of cricket rules alluded to gambling and how it should be regulated. This small troupe of professionals would foregather at the Green Man and Still in Oxford Street, London, ready to be hired and, on occasion, bribed. A colourful example was the dilemma faced by the Nottinghamshire and All-England cricket teams at Lord’s in 1817 in a match that had been apparently sold on both sides. It would require Lewis Carroll adequately to relate the confrontation of batsmen trying to get out and bowlers striving not to take wickets. Bribery was an element in all sports subject to wagering. The mix of betting and fixing is a lethal one and it proved to be a contributory factor in the violence and crowd troubles attached to cricket, as to other sports, when on offer as a public entertainment. Lest it be thought that the ‘simple’ professionals were all to blame, it is right to cite the ‘gentle’ case of the unpleasant Lord Frederick Beauclerk who, despite being a clergyman and a son of the Duke of St Albans, claimed to earn some 600 guineas a season playing cricket, some of it in very dubious situations. It is interesting to note that, at the time when the first professionals were being paid, there was at least one ‘shamateur’ in the field. In turning next, with this preliminary backdrop in mind, to the chief motif of this text, the hundred or so years of the amateur/professional relationship, we shall expect to meet a few more ‘shamateurs’ amid the anomalies of a not always clear-cut system.