Gentlemen V Players - History

History

The fixture was a prestigious one, though far short of Test match quality and even of the rival North v. South fixture. The Gentlemen teams were often very weak compared with the professionals and on occasion the fixture had to be arranged on an odds basis where the Players eleven took on a greater number of Gentlemen. The Gentlemen famously became competitive during the career of the legendary WG Grace, whose performances were so outstanding that the Gentlemen could enjoy some long-awaited success. The fixture often confirmed the commonly held view of an imbalance between amateur and professional in that amateurs tended to be batsmen first and foremost, hence there were few good amateur bowlers. The Players could call on bowlers like the arch-professional Wilfred Rhodes and were nearly always strong as a bowling side.

The game was played over three days on all but a handful of occasions throughout its history. The most common venue for the match was Lord's, but a number of other grounds were used, notably The Oval and Scarborough, and it was at Scarborough that the last Gentlemen v Players game was played, in September 1962.

The same format of amateurs playing professionals was used in a number of other fixtures, some of which were given first-class status - for example, "Gentlemen of Nottinghamshire v Players of Nottinghamshire" - but these matches became less common after the beginning of the 20th century and the last such game was "Gentlemen of the South v Players of the South" in 1920, after which all first-class Gentlemen v Players matches were between teams known simply by those names.

The Gentlemen versus Players series ended after the 1962 season, when the distinction between amateur and professional players was abolished. Fred Trueman's view of the fixture was that it was a "ludicrous business" that was "thankfully abolished" after the 1962 season.