Chapter 21. This is the Life

For many years a story went the rounds about the simple way the Derby County club was kept supplied with players. It was said that if the club found itself in need of a player, an official of the club would pay a visit to one of the near-by collieries. There he would shout down the pit-shaft particulars of his requirements: 'Send me up an inside forward'. The message would be followed by a scramble among the lads in the pit, and the miner who got to the 'lift' first was the one who became the Derby County player.

It is said that this was the way the one and only Steve Bloomer was discovered.

Roughly the same sort of thing happens in other parts of the country. Jimmy Seed climbed out of a Durham pit to play for Sunderland, for Tottenham Hotspur and for England. Now he is the manager of Charlton Athletic and being the manager of a big football club isn't such a bad job - when the club does well!

I once asked Jimmy Seed why so many of the really good footballers come from the mining districts. He replied: 'The young fellow who comes out of a pit to try to make good as a footballer just has to make good. The fear that he might have to go back to the pits if he fails is half the guarantee that he won't fail'.

Is the ambitious player right - is the game worth the candle? My quick answer is in the words which appear at the head of this chapter: This is the Life! may add, that all the signs of the times seem to point towards an even better and brighter future for the footballer.

Indeed, the modern footballer is in clover as compared with the players of other days, and, for my part, I wish I had been born some twenty or thirty years later. I wouldn't know how much better off financially are the tip-toppers of to-day as compared with the fellows who were at the top when the maximum wage was four pounds a week. But we have certainly progressed some distance along the road to the answer as to whether it is worth while trying to become a first-class footballer.

At the time of writing it is possible for a footballer to make -in wages alone - fourteen pounds a week during the playing season, and ten pounds a week during the close season. The real footballer thus earns as wages, about seven hundred a year. The additional point can be made that this sum is earned from a comparatively early age - certainly from an earlier age than can be reached in other walks of life. We hear every day of the week of players in first-class teams below the age at which they can claim the key of the door.

On top of that, of course, there is the prospect of a benefit after five years service with the same club. The maximum benefit allowed is £750 which, if my arithmetic is right, can be reckoned as another three pounds per week. Ted Sagar has played for Everton for twenty years, and there are others who have had three benefits. All the time he is in the game, too -this is a recent development - the footballer is being credited with a weekly amount which comes to him in a lump sum when he finishes playing. The match bonus must, obviously, average one pound per man over all, with rich plums for the big prize winners.

All this, of course is painting the picture at its brightest, and it is unnecessary to remind me of the truth that there are quite a number of players, connected with clubs in the Football League, whose weekly pay packets contain less than the permitted maximum. But the possibility of the good money is there.

I think it is as certain as anything can be in this uncertain world, that the day is not far distant when the maximum wage will be crossed out of the football regulations. We are heading for the time when the clubs will be allowed to pay each player what they think he is worth. There are stock arguments against the abolition of the maximum wage: arguments which are still dragged out of the pigeon holes. One of them is that football first and foremost, is a team game. Hence, so the argument continues, no single player can be a complete and outstanding success unless he has the help of efficient colleagues.

Is it reasonable to suppose that the team spirit would be sacrificed if, say, the centre-forward was getting ten pounds a week more than the outside left? I don't think so. Surely the argument would work the other way. If the prospect was held out to the lower paid player of an additional ten pounds a week, surely he would try all the harder to make himself so efficient that he in turn would be considered worth that extra pay. Once a player reaches the present-day maximum wage the incentive for improvement disappears. Put in simple language, if it were known that Stanley Matthews got forty pounds a week for playing football, there would be a greater number of Stanley Matthews knocking at the door.

There is no maximum wage rule in Scotland, and it is said that even in days when a pound was worth more than it is now Alan Morton received thirty pounds a week. Scotland still produces good footballers. It is probably true that when Jack Hobbs was playing cricket for Surrey he got more money than the other members of that team. Certainly it is true that when Patsy Hendren was playing cricket for Middlesex he got more than I did as a member of the same side. Of course he was worth more, and my ambition was to be as good as Patsy.

Another argument for limited wages is that if there were no such thing as a maximum wage all the good players would find their way to the wealthy clubs. Well, isn't that where they go under the present system? Bert Williams, Johnny Hancocks, Doug Lishman, and two or three others who could be mentioned didn't stay with Walsall, the club which brought them out. They went to the bigger organisations.

Nor can it be argued that, by abolishing the limit on wages, the richest clubs would have so many good players that they would be above competition. There are only eleven places in a football team. Stars sitting in the grandstand, watching those eleven chosen players, would be of no use to any club, and no club would be so completely lacking in financial sense as to pay fancy wages to fellows kicking their heels in the stand. Incidentally, the footballer worth his salt hates the idea of being a grandstand member of the staff.

'If there's no place for me in the first team, let me go to some club which has room for me'. That is the sentiment behind many of the transfer requests we hear so much about.

Now let me return to extol that life which I am so enthusiastic about. For the players who get to the top there are extras which are sometimes forgotten. The wages of a player aren't stopped for the week in which he plays for his country. He gets his club money as well as the lump sum extra which go with the cap.

Anybody who doesn't ramble about with his eyes shut must know that, apart from the money received from playing the game, there are indirect ways of making money out of it. Look at the hoardings, look at the newspapers. There are no millionaires dodging around on the football field, I am not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that the fellows playing first-class football are getting more pay for doing it than they would have got out of any other job.

That last observation is a reminder that, to a greater extent than was the case in the past, the question of other jobs comes up. Should this game of football be a full-time job for the professional players, or are they just as good, or even better, if they have some other job to occupy their minds during the rest of the week? My answer has a touch of Irish about it: yes - and no.

As the result of my experience I would say that there is one period in the life of a footballer when the way to the top is reached by giving all one's time to the game. That period is when one is learning. There is such a lot to learn about the game. I have known many useful players who have failed to get beyond the stage of promise because they didn't give enough time to mastering its arts and crafts.

In these days there are often grumbles about the quality of the play. How in the world can it be expected that the quality of the play, in the team sense especially, and in the individual sense to a slightly lesser degree, can be worked up to its highest pitch if half the members of a team only see each other on match days? In such a situation there is no opportunity for trying out tactical ideas.

My opinion is that the clubs which insist on players being under their orders during the week - those which insist that football is a full-time job - are right. And for the player himself this is the way up; to regard football as a whole-time job.

Even without going so far as to suggest that this should be a rule, I admit that there are exceptions. Never has there been a time when so many professional footballers use their summer months playing professional cricket. Ball players in general get on in their own line because they have what is called ball sense. If I had not spent so much time learning to play football I might have been a reasonably good golfer, or even a professional billiards player. To the fellow who is kept fit for, and kept fit by, playing football during the winter, cricket in many instances comes easy and naturally.

It's rather pleasing to be paid all the year round for being a footballer, and to be paid also for playing cricket during the summer, getting - don't forget - a cricket retainer during the winter months. That is certainly the life!

Having expressed the opinion that during the learning period, until the top of the tree is reached, and even for some time afterwards, football is a whole-time winter job, we must now consider the time when the player can't reasonably expect to stay in the game much longer. That is the time to think about the other job, and to get down to seeing that the other job is assured. In this connection, football clubs have become much more helpful. They do a great deal towards putting players into business, assisting them to master some particular calling on which they can depend when their playing days are over.

I know there are men who have earned fame in football who have gone on to the rocks when they finished as players. For these there is sympathy, but at bottom the verdict must be that in most cases it was their own fault. When they were having their day they failed to give any thought for the morrow. Perhaps it will be suggested, that, as a whole, I have painted the picture in colours altogether too bright. There are snags, pitfalls, but still the outstanding reflection is that it is - it certainly can be - a great life. The players of to-day are better looked after, in their playing days and their sequel, than they ever were. There are many little things which help to make life run more smoothly. The clubs pay out money, a great deal of it, in the effort to make certain that the player doesn't fail because of lack of constant attention or amenities. You should see those marble halls at Highbury, and all the rest of the graces of life that go with them! If the view doesn't make your mouth water for this life, I don't know what would.

Many of the clubs arrange community midday meals during the week for the playing staff. The best hotels are no longer barred to the professional footballer, as they were at one time. And whatever the merits or demerits of special training away from the club headquarters, it is a fact that during the weeks when the man of the house is away from home the women folk are at least relieved of some of the shopping anxieties. For the player everything is paid.

A fitting slogan could be: Join a football club and see the world - at other peoples' expense. The Wolverhampton players have told me what a wonderful summer they had in South Africa recently. Again, a mixed party toured Australia, where everything was good and the football not too strenuous. Trips to the Continent are routine with many clubs, while American and Canadian calls are answered.

There is also, of course, the good fellowship, the companionship, and the friendships made while playing the game. To the people 'having a go' Wilfred Pickles sometimes put this question: If you could live your life over again, would you take a different course? My answer to this question would be an emphatic No. The life in the middle may be short, but it can be a merry one for those who have the will to make it so.

Of necessity, much of it must be taken seriously. But football is still a game, and those who also make it a profession should at the same time make up their minds to enjoy it as a game. If there is a modern tendency, which can't be denied, to turn it into a grim affair that is the fault of the players. There is happiness in the physical fitness which is called for. And whether on the winning side or on the losing side, the player can sleep soundly if he has done his best and played the game.

For those of us who have had our day there are memories which live; games which we can play all over again, and enjoy. For the growing lads, the players of to-morrow, the prospect is pleasing. The promise is of an even brighter dawn.