Lives in Cricket No 21 - Walter Read

121 In sport the words amateur and gentleman are identical in meaning…A professional is one who plays at sport for a livelihood… Either every man who makes money by sport is a professional, or no man is . It is the snobbishness of the disguised professional I protest against. 197 Keith Sandiford, using supporting material from the Athletic News summed up the position of the middle group by saying that many gentlemen were unable to play regularly without payment of some kind and that “it was also beneath their dignity to play for wages or to use the same facilities as the professionals”. Some, like Read, accepted payment of one kind or another thus earning more than the professional without losing their amateur status. Sandiford goes on to say that The Athletic News spoke for the majority when, in 1879 it declared: Both cricketers and the public have become tired of the abuse of terms which confers upon one man the title of gentleman and upon another that of a professional, when the only difference between them is that the so-called gentleman takes money when he has no right to, and the professional who honestly calls himself such finds himself outbidden at his business by the mercenary amateur, who repudiates the title of professional whilst appropriating all the emoluments connected therewith. 198 While the criticism, both contemporary and subsequent, of shamateurism and veiled professionalism, is entirely understandable and, indeed, justified, attitudes have to be seen in the context of sport and society which have changed beyond recognition between the late nineteenth century and the early twenty-first. Top class sport is now almost entirely professional, the standards of skill and professionalism now required are such that there is no longer room for the gifted amateur and the FA Amateur Cup, amateur international rugby union, amateur Wimbledon and amateur Olympic Games have disappeared with the twentieth century. Different sports have dealt with the metamorphosis from amateur to professional sport in different ways, association football by recognising professionalism ear- ly, rugby splitting into two separate codes. The Gaelic Athletic Association, staunchly amateur since its foundation in 1884, is now grappling with professionalism and may have reached 197 Cricket 11 April 1895 198 Cricket and the Victorians p 83 Last Years