Category Archives: Culture

The English sporting amateur

Top class sport is now so tied to money that it may seem quaint to his generation that for all of the nineteenth century and much of twentieth century the amateur played a major role in many of the more popular sports. This was due to the fact that most major sports originated in England, where the spirit of amateurism was very strong, and these became spread across the globe when Britain had the only world empire worthy of the name and was also the most industrial advanced and economically powerful state in the world. Other nations who took up the games had a natural inclination to imitate the English way in sport, because of where the games originated and because of England’s prominent position in the world.

There was also a strong class element. This was a time when class and status was still very much an issue throughout Europe and those parts of the world which were within the British Empire. Nor was the United States immune to the lure of class. As the amateur was associated with being a gentleman and a professional classed as a working man, it suited the better-off to support the distinction. It also provided in some games, especially cricket, the means by which, in even a very socially stratified society, people of very different social status could play together.

But there was more to it than that. The English elite of the 19th century was in thrall to an idealised version of the ancient world and from this came the prime amateur ideals of doing something praiseworthy for its own sake and behaving honourably in the observance of not only the laws but the spirit of a game.

Football, cricket and golf had professionals from their early days as public spectacles, but even within games those the amateur had a long run. Other major sports such as athletics, tennis and rugby union remained in theory at least amateur until well into the latter half of the twentieth century, although shamateurism, the paying of amateurs illicitly through devices such as inflated expenses or salaries for on-sporting jobs which were never actually performed, tainted most ajor sports. But even though this dishonesty went on there were still many genuine amateurs in top class sport until quite recent times. It is also true that the shamateurs were paid minute sums compared with the vast amounts many openly professional sportsmen get today.

The amateur had a prominent playing role partly because it was the upper and middle classes who developed and ran modern sport. Even the archetypal working class game, Association football, had at its foundations the public schools and innumerable worthies from the gentry and mercantile classes who founded many of the clubs which are now household names. The true amateur was also cheap because at worst he drew only expenses (shamateurs were a different kettle of fish, often being considerably more expensive to employ than an official pro).

But there was more to amateurism in top class sport than simple class dominance and cheapness. The middle and upper classes brought with them a rather noble ethos. Being an amateur was more than just being person who played without being paid. Games were seen having a moral purpose in the building of character. Team sports taught the individual to subordinate their own interests to that of the group, while individual competition forced a boy to confront their personal responsibility. Playing for its own sake was something pure, untainted by the crudity of commercialism.

That the amateur ethos was always battling with the vagaries of human nature which in many people invariably seeks to gain advantage unfairly is neither here nor there. The important thing is the existence of the ideal. Like most noble ideals it was followed to some degree and behaviour during play was as a general rule rather more sporting thanit is in a purely professional game. Moreover, even where a sport became at a fairly early stage overwhelmingly professional on the playing side, as was the case of football, the existence of people with the amateur spirit administering and controlling the game meant their mentality was reflected in the way professionals behaved – a prowho did otherwise would risk the end of his career. This was important because the behaviour of everyone who plays or watches a sport is influenced by the behaviour of those at the top.

The true amateur was also thought to bring a spirt of adventure to top class sport because he was not weighed down by the thought that he must perform if his employment in the sport was to continue. This was one of the most powerful arguments cited in support of the amateur captain in county cricket. It had a certain force to it.

I regret the virtual extinction of the amateur in the popular top level sports. In my ideal world all sport would be amateur. There is something constricting about all-professional sport. Players do have to consider the next contract. They do have to consider their performance if they wish to move to a bigger club or take part in international sport. The talented sportsman who is not a professional is simply excluded. Such a person may simply not be able to gain a professional opportunity or he may simply not want to be a full time professional sportsman. Either way he is lost to the top level of his sport. Cricket in particular has suffered from the abolition of theamateur/professional distinction, with few if any players who are not contracted to a county club having any chance to play for the county. Professional sport has too much of the closed shop about it to be healthy.

Attached to amateur ideal was that of the “allrounder”. For the gentleman the ideal was the scholar athlete, an ideal approached most famously by the Victorian Charles Burgess Fry, who won a classics scholarship to Oxford, set the world long jump record whilst there, obtained Blues for cricket, football, rugby and athletics and went on to play cricket and football for England.

But there was also a professional niche as a sporting allrounder. Many famous footballers played cricket professionally and many famous cricketers, football, perhaps most notably Denis Compton who played cricket for Middlesex and England while spending his winters from cricket tours speeding down the left wing for Arsenal. Sadly, the extension of the football season to ten months of the year has killed the professional footballer/cricketer. Phil Neal who batted for Worcestershire and played left back for Lincoln City in the 1970s and 1980s was the last of the breed.

Cricket – the first modern game

Cricket was the first team game to be a great spectator sport, indeed, one might argue that it was the first great spectator game of any sort as opposed to a sport such as horse-racing, running, boxing or the more disreputable pursuits of cock and dog fighting and bear baiting.

Cricket might also reasonably claim to have inaugurated the idea of international sport with the first cricket tour to North America in 1859.

The game is very old. It can be dated certainly from the 16th century, but as a pursuit it is reasonable to assume it was much older – before the age of printing little was recorded about any subject. There are some intriguing references in old manuscripts which may refer to cricket, for example, an entry in the wardrobe accounts of Edward I in 1300 which records a payment for the Kings sons playing at “Creag” (H S Altham p20 A History of Cricket Vol I).

The game probably became more than simply a rustic or boys’ pursuit towards the end of the 17th century. The gentry took it up – George III’s father, Frederick, was a very keen player and actually died from an abscess caused by being hit by a cricket ball – and teams were raised by great aristocrats such as the Duke of Dorset, Such men effectively created the first cricketing professionals by employing the best players on their estates, ostensibly to do other jobs, but primarily to ensure they played cricket for a particular team. Partly because of this and partly because the game grew out of a still overwhelmingly rural England with its much closer relationship between the classes than later existed, English cricket was always a socially inclusive game, with dukes literally rubbing shoulders with ploughmen.

The game was early organised. Sides representing counties such as Kent, Hampshire and Sussex were competing with each other by the first half of the 18th century. Teams called England or the Rest of England were also got up to play either a strong county or, in the second half of the century, the Hambledon Club, a club based in a tiny Hampshire village. Hambledon were surprising modern in their thinking, having built the 18th century equivalent of the team coach – a great pantechnicon – to transport the team and its followers to away matches.

During its first century or so as a spectator sport cricket was bedevilled by betting. Important matches were played for very large purses, sometimes more than a thousand pounds, a fortune in the 18th century. Even more insidious was individual betting on results or the performances of individual players within the game – the nature of cricket absolutely lends itself to the latter. But although the game was always under suspicion of foul play, much as horse racing is today, betting must have greatly increased interest in the game.

With the coming of the railways cricket moved into the modern professional era with the formation of the All-England Eleven and its imitators such as the United South of England Eleven. These touring professional sides took cricket around England and laid the foundation for the modern county game. During the same period the county clubs as we know them today began to be formally established, with Surrey dating from 1845. By the 1870s the work of the travelling professional sides was done and county cricket became the mainstay of English cricket.

H.S.Altham entitled a chapter in his History of Cricket somewhat blasphemously as the Coming of W.G.Grace. This was not hyperbole. In the high Victorian age two people were known as the GOM (Grand Old man). The first was Gladstone, the second was Grace. It is a moot point who was the better known. It is no moot point who was the greater celebrity: W.G. won hands down.

Grace was the first great popular games playing hero. His first class career lasted an amazing 43 years (1865-1908). He made his first class debut at the age of 15. His Test career began in 1880 with a score of 152. He played his last Test at the age of 50 in 1899. At the age of 47 (1995) he scored a thousand runs in May, the first man to do so (only five other men have ever managed it).

About the only two organisational things seen in modern team sport which cricket did not invent are cup competitions and leagues – the honour for doing so rests with football, although an unofficial county championship existed before the formation of the Football League.

The mother of modern sport

“We [the Coca Cola Championship] are the fourth best supported division in Europe with nearly 10 million fans last season, after the Premiership [12.88 million], Bundesliga [11.57 million] and La Liga [10.92]. We are ahead of Seria A.” Lord Mahwinny, Chairman of the Football League – Daily Telegraph 28 7 2005.

The English have a most tremendous sporting culture. By that I do not mean that England is always winning everything at the national level – although they do far better than is generally realised – but rather that the interest in sport is exceptionally deep and wide. As the quote from Mahwinny shows, not only is the top division of English football (the Premiership) the most watched in Europe, the second division (the Coca Cola Championship) attracts more spectators than all but two of the top divisions in Europe, beating even the top division of that supposed bastion of football Italy.

The colossal support for football in England is all the more extraordinary because the country has so many other sports seriously competing for spectators, arguably more than any other country because England competes at a serious level in almost all the major international sports – gymnastics and alpine sports are the exceptions. This all round sporting participation resulted in England in the early 1990s coming within touching distance of becoming world champions in football, rugby and cricket. In 1990 England lost in the semi-finals on penalties to Germany in the football World Cup; in 1991 they lost the final of the Rugby World Cup and in 1992 they lost in the final the Cricket World Cup. No other country, not even Australia, could have shown as strongly in all three sports.

The intense English interest in sport at club level is carried through to the national sides. England’s rugby, cricket and football teams have immense support wherever they go, whether it be the amazingly loyal England football supporters or cricket’s Barmy Army, the special quality of their support is recognised by foreigners: “German fans want to be like the English fans. They want to be 100 per cent for their team, for their land.” (German supporter at World Cup 2006 Daily Telegraph 6 7 2006)

This wonderful English attachment to sport is not so strange when it is remembered that most important international sports were either created by the English or the English had a large hand in establishing them as international sports. In addition, other important sports are plausibly derived from English games, most notably American and Astralian Rules football from rugby, baseball from rounders and asketball from netball. In fact, all the major team games in their modern forms originated in Anglo-Saxon countries: cricket, football, rugby union, rugby league, American football, Australian rules, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, hockey.

Even the modern Olympic games were inspired by the Englishman Dr William Penny Brookes’ “Olympic Games” at Much Wenlock in Shropshire which he founded in 1850. A visit to the Wenlock gave the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, his idea for reviving the Olympic Games in Athens. Brookes was a tireless advocate of such a revival himself and only died in 1894 shortly before the first modern Olympic games was held in 1896. On the 100th anniversary of his death, the then president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch laid a wreath on Brookes’ grave with the words “I come to pay homage and tribute to Dr Brooks, who really was the founder of the modern Olympic games.” (Bridgnorth Information). It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the English invented modern spectator sport.

Of the games directly created, to the one game which deserves the title of a world sport – football – the English may add cricket, rugby (both codes), snooker, hockey, lawn tennis, badminton, squash, table tennis and snooker, Those who yawn at the likes of hockey, table tennis and squash should reflect on the fact that sports vary greatly in popularity from country to country. Hockey is the Indian Subcontinent’s second game: squash, badminton and table tennis are to the fore throughout Asia, while snooker is rapidly growing in popularity in the Far East.

The organisation of sport

The difference between sports before the modern era and those in the modern era is that the pre-modern sports were not organised or standardised. In pre-modern times sports lacked both a standard set of rules and governing bodies to enforce the common rules. The English changed all that and they began the process very early, most notably in cricket where a governing body, the MCC, and a generally accepted set of rules (known as laws) were established before the end of the 18th century. Some of major sports where England had the first national association and established the first generally accepted set of rules are:

Association Football – Football Association formed in 1863. The FA established the laws of the game

Cricket – First published Laws 1744, MCC formed 1787

Hockey – 1883 standard set of rules published by Wimbledon Club,

Hockey Association founded 1886

Lawn Tennis – Wimbledon championships established 1877 with first set

of rules resembling the game as it is now

Rugby Union – 1871 The Rugby Union formed and the first laws published

The dominance of England as a creator and organiser of sports is further illustrated by the existence of truly iconic sporting venues such as Lords (cricket), Wembley (football), Twickenham (Rugby Union) and Wimbledon (tennis), all of which have a resonance that stretches far beyond England.

International Sport

Anyone who wonders why the four home nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), are allowed to play as separate teams in major sports such as football and rugby even though they are not independent countries need wonder no longer. The answer is that the four home nations were the four original international players in these sports.

The Rugby Union arranged the first international rugby match between England and Scotland in 1871, while the first football international between England and Scotland kicked off in 1872.

Further afield cricket led the way. The first international cricket tour was in 1859 when a team of Englishmen toured North America. Further tours took place to Australia in the 1860s and 1870s. What was later recognised as the first cricket Test match was played between England an Australia in Australia 1877. The first Test match in England was played between England and Australia in 1880 at the Oval.

Of course it was not only formal efforts which spread English sports. Everywhere the English went they took their games with them. In the time of the Empire and Britain’s dominance as an economic and political power this meant almost the entire world. Most of the world was eager to adopt at least some English sports. Indeed, of the many cultural things England have exported, sports have a good claim to be the most eagerly received.

The games which England invented did not need to be forced upon others. The opposite was often the case. Within the Empire complaints were frequently made by the native populations that they were excluded from participation in games such as football and cricket.

England: the most extraordinary of national histories

The most extraordinary fact of English history is that it happened. On the periphery of Europe, sparsely populated for most of its history, always faced by powerful neighbours, it is barely credible that this people achieved such a prominent place in history. Rationally England should have been throughout its history a small impoverished backward state, an extra on the European stage. Consider the history of Ireland which was placed in much the same general situation as England. A novelist who created an equivalent fictional history would be laughed out of court on the grounds of utter improbability.

There is so much that is unusual about England. Not only did she possess the only world empire ever worthy of the name, she produced the one bootstrapped industrial revolution, has displayed a quite unparalleled political stability and a unique political evolution leading to representative government and perhaps most importantly in the long run created a language which for its all round utility cannot be equalled. England is the cause of the modern world. Let her self-respect rest on that massive fact. The English do not need to invent a mythical past for their self-esteem: the reality with all its warts is splendid and marvellous.

But history is more than events and institutions. It is about great and influential personalities. England has many to chose from, I will be self-indulgent and put forward some of my favourites. Alfred The Great (for his preservation of England), Chaucer, Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, Newton, Locke, Wellington, Darwin. All left a mark on the world which went far beyond these shores. (My choice does not include any person from the twentieth century because I believe it is too soon to judge their significance.)

Why did England become what it is and achieve what it has? The conventional explanations revolve around such accidents of nature as its island status providing a barrier to disruptive invasion and its prolific quantities of coal and iron ore summoning an industrial revolution. But none of these hold water because no individual reason or group of reasons is unique to England.

Take the example of Japan, which in its island status, close proximity to one of the most advanced parts of the world and absence of foreign invasion for a great time most resembles England, never came close to achieving and industrial revolution or any form of government which took account of the whole of society. Ultimately, the cause of England’s difference must remain a mystery. If I had to put my finger on a general reason, I would say that England has come the closest of all countries to maturity as a people. General McArthur memorably said of the Japanese that they were a nation of twelve year olds. We are not a nation of seasoned adults, but perhaps a nation of eighteen year olds. I suspect that is about the best any country can hope for.

Is there an English personality? I conclude there is, for I believe all peoples develop a secondary personality. What are the English? They are sceptical, they are pragmatic, they are (still) natural respecters of the law. Above all they are not murderously violent. It is a remarkable thing that mob violence in England for centuries has rarely resulted in mass deaths – this trait is seen in football hooliganism today. The conduct of the English Civil War was wholly exceptional in its lack of sack and pillage which was the norm on the continent in the seventeenth century. The English have long possessed in spades the qualities which make civilised life possible.

But gratifying as our history is, we must never forget that we live in a dynamic universe. The past is but the past and old glories no guardians of the future. As a matter of urgency the English must learn to resist the incessant insult to which they are now subject. A nation may be likened to a man. If a man continually accepts insult or engages in repeated self-denigration, we think him a poor fellow. At first such behaviour is embarrassing. Soon it becomes irritating. Eventually it breeds a profound contempt and contempt is mother to all enormities. So it is with peoples. On the simple ground of self-preservation, the English cannot afford to continue to permit the present gratuitous and incontinent abuse offered by both foreigners and her own ruling elite nor tolerate the suppression of the English voice.

How may the English reverse the present state? As with all peoples, the English need to be taught their history to give them a psychological habitation. Moreover, the myths of the England haters dissolve readily enough in the acid of fact. The problem is that there is presently a conscious effort backed by the forces of the state to deny the English a proper knowledge of their history, or indeed any meaningful knowledge at all. Incredible but true. The attack is two pronged: denigration and a concentration on historical trivia at the expense of the important.

The habit of denigration has a long history. Here is Friedrich Hayek’s description of the left of fifty years ago:

The Left intelligentsia…have so long worshipped foreign gods that they seem to have become almost incapable of seeing any good in the characteristic English institutions and traditions. That the moral values on which most of them pride themselves are largely the products of the institutions they are out to destroy, these socialists cannot, of course, admit. Sdaly, this attitude is unfortunately not confined to avowed socialists. Though one must hope that it is not true of the less vocal but more numerous cultivated Englishman, if one were to judge by the ideas which find expression in current political discussion and propaganda the Englishman who not only “the language speak that Shakespeare spake”, but also “the faith and morals hold that Milton held” seems to have almost vanished. [The Road to Serfdom]

What the left internationalists did not have fifty odd years ago was control of education or a supremacy in politics and the media. They now possess this utterly. The concentration on trivia is of more recent birth and had its roots in the late fifties and early sixties. Prior to then, complaints about an over concentration on “Kings and Queens” history existed, but no one in the academic world seriously suggested that such history was unimportant. That has now gone. Even pupils who have taken A-Level history know next to nothing. Facts and chronology have been replaced by “historical empathy” and investigative skills. Where once pupils would have learnt of Henry V, Wellington and the Great Reform Bill, they are now asked to imagine that they are a peasant in 14th Century England or an African slave on a slaver. The results of such “empathy” are not judged in relation to the historical record, but as exercises in their own right. Whatever this is, it is not historical understanding. Because history teaching has been removed from historical facts, the assessment of the work of those taught becomes nothing more than the opinion of the teacher. This inevitably results in the prejudices of the teacher being reflected in their presentation and marking. In the present climate of opinion within British education this means liberal political correctness wins the day. Thus history teaching, and the teaching of other subjects such as geography which can be given a PC colouring, has become no better than propaganda. This would be unfortunate if the propaganda promoted English history and culture uncritically. But to have anti-English propaganda in English schools and universities is positively suicidal. That it is state policy is barely credible.

The extent to which the state has embraced the politically correct, anti-British line is illustrated by this letter to the Daily Telegraph from Chris McGovern when director of the History Curriculum Association, which campaigns against the failure to teach British history fairly or comprehensively:

SIR–The landmarks of British history have become optional parts the national curriculum (report Sept. 10). They appear only as italicised examples of what is permissible to teach.

However, this permission is offered in guarded terms. A guidance letter already sent to every school in the country states: “… we would also like to emphasise that it is very much up to individual schools to determine whether or not to use the italicised examples”. However, there is no such equivocation about teaching history through a host of politically correct social themes. Failure to filter history through such perspectives as gender, race, agent and cultural diversity will be in breach of the law. (Sunday Telegraph 4/12/94).

That was the state of affirs 16 years ago. It has worsened considerably since. How have we reached this state? The root of it was in the mentality which Hayek noticed fifty years ago, but it required mass immigration for its realisation as a state policy. Multiculturalism was embraced as a mainstream political ideal in the late 1970s because politicians did not know what to do about mass immigration and its consequences. Both Labour and the Conservatives initially embraced the French solution to racial tension, namely integration. But by the end of the seventies integration was deemed by the our elite to be a failure at best and oppression at worst. Multiculturalism was its successor. Once it became the new official doctrine, the many eager Anglophobic and internationalist hands in British education and the mass media were free to give reign to their natural instincts.

Apart from the denigration and underplaying of English history and culture, the espousal of multiculturalism has had profound effects on English society. By continually denigrating and belittling the English, ethnic minorities have been encouraged to develop a contempt and hatred for England. It is the most consistent form of incitement to racial hatred within these shores, made all the more dangerous by its espousal by the British state and elite.

The practical effects are the creation of a grievance culture within the various ethnic minorities and a belief that English laws and customs may be ignored with impunity, a belief perhaps best exemplified by the Muslim attack on free expression. The position is made worse in that instance by the existence of the Race Relations Act, which is an attack on one of the things Englishmen have long prized: namely the right to say what one wants without fear of the criminal law.

If England is to survive as more than a geographical entity, it is essential that the young be imprinted with a knowledge of the immense achievements of Britain in general and England in particular. This need not mean the creation of a vulgar, contrived chauvinism for there is so much of undeniable value in Britain’s past that a fictionalised and bombastic history is unnecessary. For example, why not base GCSE history teaching on a core of the development of the English language, the history of science and technology (with special emphasis on the industrial revolution), the development of the British constitution and the growth and administration of Empire? Multiculturalism should be abolished in the schools as a matter of policy.

No nation can maintain itself if it does not have a profound sense of its worth. In a healthy society this sense of worth simply exists and children imbibe it unconsciously. Our society has been so corrupted by the liberal’s hatred of his own culture that a conscious programme of cultural imprinting is necessary. If it is not done, how long will it be before English children express surprise when told they are speaking English and not American? The corrosion of English society can only be halted if pride of England and her achievements is instilled in the young.

The words of the younger Pitt in 1783 (following the disaster of the American War of Independence) seem peculiarly apt for our time:

We must recollect … what is we have at stake, what it is we have to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for our character, it is for our very name as

Englishmen, it is for everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.

The English must learn to attend to their own interests for reasons of simple preservation. They may best do this by the creation of an English Parliament to provide England with a political and public voice. Only when that is done, may the liberal censorship of the ordinary men and women of England be broken.