September 26, 1893
There are signs in the football world of a crisis. It is, of course, a pecuniary crisis, and equally of course, the outcome – the inevitable outcome, of the growth of professionalism. With club competing against club for the possession of the best players, these last are the only persons concerned who profit. The clubs that, being out-bidden, lose the men who have brought them fame and therefore gate-money, suffer in their receipts when their prime attractions are removed. And, on the other hand, the clubs that buy these expensive two-legged luxuries only too often come to regret their enterprise. The paragon suddenly seems to have fallen lame or inefficient, or the new air or his new comrades do not agree with him. It was scarcely like buying a pig in a poke, but the result is much the same. Only the player has profited. He has perhaps obtained a situation for two years at substantial pay in an office or manufactory, plus a weekly football wage of £2 or £3 all the year round, and plus also a considerable sum down into the bargain. If he is a man of little or no conscience, a thick skin, and a fine comtempt for the popular voice, he may live good days in his vocation, even though the vacillating, yet upon the whole generous-minded, public write him down a fraud, and as such execrate him whenever the chance offers.
This state of things has drifted towards the absurd. The admiration of the football “pro,” has come to a climax. The word “strike” has been mentioned among the players. It will have to be effectively acted upon, not by players, but by their employers, if the professional clubs of the League are to continue to exist. These clubs have during the last year or two mostly become limited companies. Of old the teams were financed by the two or three chief enthusiasts of their respective districts. Preston North End and Major Sudell will in this relationship always be associated. But with the enlargement of a club’s concerns and responsibilities, individuals have naturally looked askance at the augmentation of their risks. Hence the circular “in the interest of sport.” One thousand, two thousand, or five thousand shares at £1 apiece are offered to the public in support of their pampered darlings, and of these shares, a sufficiency have been taken up to keep the club running, for a time at all events. It cannot be expected that the directors of football clubs should be masterly financiers. They are too deeply interested in the achievements of the team they rule to be miserly in the expenditure of a few pounds more or less per week. The “few pounds more” may mean to them all the difference between being loved and being hated by their fellow townsmen. It is remarkable that it should be so, yet the fact is undeniable that the Anglo-Saxon spectators of these league football matches are as hot blooded as any southerners, and as impulsive in their judgments too. If the team of their town wins, well and good. Both the team and the directors (honest tradesmen these, for the most part) come in for applause and regard. A succession of disasters is, however, a dire calamity to the district. They mean diminution of self respect to thousands, lessened gates to the club exchequer, discontent and perhaps disorganisation to the team, and to the directors anything, from loss of appetite and insomnia to incipient insanity. A tradesman must have a strong mental and moral constitution to endure the abuse audibly cast at him by his fellow townsmen as he walks in the football arena in the presence of the crowd and of the team whose fortunes he has been reckless or designing enough to share. Anything to avoid this. Hence, possibly, a quite frenzied wooing of this or that “crack” player whose papers leave him open to a re-engagement. The “crack” player is, of course, in treaty with other clubs also. His terms are hard to ascertain. They go up and up as he corresponds with his respective admirers. At length he is secured, at great cost to the club’s balance sheet, but it is hoped as a most welcome sop tp the public whose acquaintance he has to make. There is something both comic and tragic in the way the directors of football companies hasten to retire from the management at specific times – especially when the banking account gets gravely overdrawn and bank managers require personal guarantees for overdrafts.
There is no exaggeration in this picture. It is on record that a Scotch half back was lured into England on a two years’ lease for £500. For this sum he was expected to play matches of course only during 16 months. Assuming his station in life was that of a mechanic, he did pretty well for himself. Only the other day a member of the Blackburn Rovers caused some trouble by his hesitancy to sign on with his old team. He was negotiating in other directions, and now he plays with Everton for, it is said on excellent authority, the substantial emolument of £250 down and £5 per week. The secretary of the famous Sunderland team (which heads the League) tells a story that is on par with these proofs of the desirability of a talent at football. A Scotchman of repute as a player, wished to join the Sunderland men. Asked as to his terms, he replied, “£150 down, £150 a year, and a situation of £70 per annum in a shipbuilding yard.” Tales like these, which are moreover true, make the ordinary layman wish that he had the control of his education in early youth. As a career there can be no question about the healthiness, and, indeed, delight, of that of a football pro. Its knocks are of a wholesome physical kind; they do not harass his mind and prematurely age him. He is loved (to borrow from epitaphs) by all who know him. He is watched over, not only by his fond relations, but by a vigilant and solicitous “Players’ committee” and club doctor. Whether he exerts himself for five or six hours weekly or whether he does not, if his “papers” are discreetly prepared, he draws his so many pounds per Saturday. Saloon railway cars are at his disposal for his journeys; and when he is damaged he is not even asked to pay the cost of even a yard of diachylon paster. The local Press is more than interested in him; it prints his picture and biography over and over again on the least provocation. And he has more money in his pocket and in the bank than one stripling in ten of his age and condition in life can boast of having. All that is exacted of him in return is that he shall act the part of an honest, energetic, and true man in the field. But it cannot last. The vice-president of the Football League, who is admittedly in the confidence of the leading clubs of the League, tells us it cannot last another season. Summer pay, at least, must be done away with. It is an anomaly that it was ever given, and the consequences are ruining the clubs that follow the practice. Mr. Bentley may be quoted on this point in detail: – “It is not many years since the system was adopted, and certainly not more than four since a club with which I am intimately connected paid less than £75 for the whole summer in what was then considered retaining fees – about 10s. per man. To show the alteration which competition has brought about I may incidentally remark that the sum now paid by the same club during the summer months amounts to at least £550.”
Nothing enters the club’s exchequer during the summer, but the outgoings are as constant as at other times. It is this and just this that explains the poor financial standing of most of the leading professional teams.
The Everton Club is a unique exception to this rule. The balance sheet of the working of this, the leading Liverpool football team, is interesting as an illustration of the grip professional football has got upon the people. Its gate receipts during the season 1892-3 were £8,815 19s. 4d. and its gross receipts £10,892 13s. 10d. Of this noble income £3.539 1s. 6. Was paid in wages to players and £1.593 1s. 2d. to visiting teams. No club has so numerous and consistent a crowd of patrons as this of Everton. Hence the actual balance in hand of £1,967 9s. 11d. With such a purse the Everton committee can offer fair baits to players in other parts of the kingdom. Aston Villa, Bolton, and another club or two succeed in keeping on the right side. All the other great clubs are struggling with deficits which threaten to choke them out of the first rank. Blackburn Rovers owe the bank £1,275, Notts. Forest have a deficiency of £429; their humbled rivals of Notts. County owe more than £1,000; the West Bromwich Albion are to the bad £1,014 19s. 3.; Sheffield United, just admitted to the League begin their more dignified career with a debt of about £900; Newton Heath have liabilities £314 7s. 6d. ; and the present cupholders, the Wolverhampton Wanderers, in spite of the hundreds of pounds their cup matches alone earned for them, are about £500 in arrears.
Well may those who do not love professional football point the finger of ridicule at our leading league clubs. From this year there will be increased receipts for clubs which run to the semi-finals and the final of the English Cup competition. The Football Association has a nest-egg of £6,000, and wants no more. Speaking roughly, that leaves another £2,000 available for the league teams – and a most desirable tit-bit the half of it will be for the teams left in the final.
But it is just this nauseous and obtrusive question of pounds, shillings, and pence that is so afflicting a complement of the growth of professionalism. There is less of it in Rugby Union football – at least, it is less evident. But even here it is possible to finesse through the regulations that at present are opposed to paid players.
This season will be, as has been said, a most critical one in Association league football. The tens of thousands of spectators who assemble week after week at the league contests know little about the canker that is menacing their darling pastime. It is possible, just possible, that in a few months the whole edifice of professionalism, even in Association football, will be shaken to its foundation.
(Source: Nottingham Evening Post: September 26, 1893)
"Play Up, Liverpool" 