Cricket history is one of my interests. I'm currently writing a book on the England vs West Indies test series of 1933 and the return series in the West Indies in 1935.
Doing this I spent some time going through the MCC archives where I came across correspondence on negotiations between the West Indies Board of Control and their three star players: Learie Constantine, George Headley and Manny Martindale over contracts for the 1939 tour of England.
I thought it was interesting stuff but didn't fit in with the book, so instead it became an article that got published in the Nightwatchman cricket quarterly. Now I have a blog it is reproduced below.
Six hundred
pounds, plus expenses
Test cricket
between the two World Wars seems very far away. Norman Gordon of South
Africa died in 2014 and there is no - one left alive who played international
cricket before World War II. All we are
left with is flickering fragments of Test matches on film. Yet during the 1920s and ’30s cricket developed
into a global game played between nations, with many of the same conflicts that
confront 21st-century cricket.
West Indies
were awarded Test status in 1926 and after series in England in 1928 and
1933 some West Indians came to England to play cricket professionally. Only in England was it possible
to earn a living as a cricketer, which was of particular relevance to non-white
West Indians who lacked the money to self-finance their cricketing careers. But
a professional career could come into conflict with playing Test cricket for
the West Indies.
In the spring
of 1933 William Findlay, secretary of MCC, wrote to the Lancashire League’s
Nelson Cricket and Bowling Club (NCBC), asking them to make the Trinidadian Learie Constantine available for the forthcoming Test at Lord’s. Constantine
brought athleticism and excitement to 1930s cricket. He was probably the most
famous West Indian in the world and MCC wanted him to play for both financial
and cricketing reasons.
Constantine’s
involvement was important not only for that 1933 series but for the broader development
of Test cricket. New
Zealand and India had joined the West Indies
as new Test-playing nations but international cricket in the 1930s wasn’t properly
multilateral; it was instead a series of bilateral relationships between
England and the other Test-playing nations. South Africa had succumbed to
sporting apartheid and would not play West Indies or India. The Australian
Cricket Board so resented the dilution of its special relationship with England
and MCC that New Zealand did not play a Test in Australia until 1973.
Learie
Constantine – playing club cricket as a professional rather than for West
Indies as an amateur posed a threat to Test cricket. Was the successful model
for cricket’s future a club-based entrepreneurialism that transcended national
boundaries?
Findlay
applied all the moral authority at his disposal to try and get Nelson to do the
right thing: “They [the MCC Committee] do feel in the interests of cricket
generally everything possible should be done to enable the West Indies to place
their best side in the field.”
MCC and its
members were at the apex of both English and international cricket. It determined
the laws of cricket and selected England touring teams. Although the ICC ran international
cricket, meetings were held at Lord’s and attended by MCC members who would
represent the interests of the absent countries, and the minutes of ICC
meetings were kept in MCC’s minute book.
But Nelson would not be swayed and, whilst
England played West Indies at Lord’s, Constantine
turned out at Seedhill for Nelson against bitter rivals Colne. The Nelson Club
received many letters of criticism. The writer of Northern Notes in the The Cricketer
reported that: “One missive was particularly sarcastic and abusive and was
signed by a person who if I gave his name would look small as he is captain of
one of the London clubs.”
But MCC had
applied moral persuasion to what was, at heart, a financial issue. Nelson paid
Constantine £650 for a summer’s cricket. Applying a price index, £650 in 1933
has a modern-day value of £40,000 and, if a wages index is applied, it’s worth
over £100,000. And he earned his money; Lancashire League games that involved Constantine
could draw crowds of up to 10,000; the “crowd” at Lord’s for the first day of
Derbyshire v Middlesex in August 1933 was less than 1,000.
Despite
Constantine’s absence from two of the three Tests of the English summer of
1933, the West Indies tour was a financial success, with total gate money of
£9,000 and a surplus accruing to the WICBC of £2,500. This was in part because George Headley and Manny Martindale established themselves as star players
during the tour. It was Headley’s first tour of England and he persuaded both
journalists and the English cricketing public that: “A Test Match can still
provide the highest and most pleasant form of cricket.”
Martindale
was one in a long line of West Indies fast bowlers who combined pace,
aggression and skill. He had a bowling average of 17.9 in the 1933 Test series, and took 19 wickets at 12.6 in the England v West Indies Tests of 1935.
Constantine
had shown West Indian cricketers that, in England, they could both play cricket
and earn a decent living. By 1938 Headley was playing for Haslingden,
Martindale for Burnley and Constantine had switched from Nelson to Rochdale. If
the three star players didn’t turn out for West Indies in 1939 it was unlikely
that the tour would be a success either on or off the field, and the WICBC
decided that they would have to offer the three professionals proper contracts.
This would take West Indian cricket into a new era, but could negotiations succeed?
At first the
signs were good. Constantine, Headley and Martindale indicated that they wanted
to play for West Indies rather than their league sides, and the clubs – who
were approached in advance – were prepared to release the players from their
contracts. All that needed to be decided was: how much?
Initial
approaches were made to Constantine and Headley when they spent the winter of
1937–38 in the Caribbean, and there was verbal agreement that both would play
for West Indies in the summer of 1939: Constantine for £600 and Headley for
£500. Both Headley and Constantine were taking a pay cut to play for West
Indies; Constantine was paid £750 by Rochdale, and Headley earned £700 plus “success
money” at Haslingden.
The offer of £500 to George Headley looks shabby. In 1938 Headley had a Test average of well over 60, and, as a
cricketer, he was the most valuable of the three players the WICBC were trying
to sign. But Headley was Jamaican, Constantine was from Trinidad, and
maybe the hope was that Headley would sign his contract without becoming aware
of the offer to Constantine. But no contracts were signed at this stage. The
three professionals returned to England in the spring of 1938 and it was left
to Richard Mallett to finalise the agreements.
Mallett was
an Edwardian gentleman and sportsman who played cricket for Durham and rugby union
for Hartlepool Rovers. He was also an amateur sports administrator who had
close links with West Indian cricket. As early as 1906 he had managed a West
Indies tour to England. Twenty years later he had travelled to the West Indies
and helped to set up the WICBC, and on his return to the UK he continued to act
for the WICBC.
Mallett
conducted negotiations with the three players in the north of England and
various WICBC members in the West Indies. This was done mainly by letter – it
took less than a week for a letter to travel from then British Guiana to
Mallett’s home in Ickenham, Middlesex – and much of this correspondence is in
MCC’s archives.
At first
Mallett was successful in his negotiations and a substantive agreement was
reached with Constantine in May 1938. But, by June, Martindale and Headley had
become aware of the £600 offered to Constantine. They were angry about the gap and
Martindale wrote to the WICBC: “My remuneration in a league season exceeds by a
big margin whatever I shall receive for playing with the West Indies, with much
less cricket. Therefore considering all of the abovementioned circumstances, I
feel I am doing West Indies cricket a great favour in deciding to play on tour,
for which I must be paid £600 and expenses.”
There is no
biography of Manny Martindale, but the letter gives the strong impression of a
man who, by 1938, isn’t going to be messed about. When Constantine and Mallett
write to each other there are generally a few paragraphs of general discussion
before getting down to business, whereas Martindale cuts to the chase.
The WICBC
tacitly acknowledged that they had been trying to put one over on Headley and
Martindale and, in July 1938, they were offered the £600 plus expenses that was
being paid to Constantine.
But still
Martindale and Headley held out. Their understanding was that expenses would
include the customary £50 clothing allowance that was made available to amateur
players, but the WICBC felt pros should pay for their own kit. As the
negotiations were reduced to points of detail, both sides became entrenched.
The sensitive issue of money was destabilising
cricketing relationships already built on the fault lines of race and class. The
administrators of West Indian cricket were drawn exclusively from the
propertied, white sections of West Indian society, but Constantine, Martindale
and Headley were all black men. And now they were demanding what was good money
by the standards of the 1930s. Jack Kidney was manager of West Indies tours to
England in 1933 and 1939, and was paid £200 plus an expense allowance of £3 a
week. In 1933 that put him in a much better financial position than the players
on 30 shillings a week, but in 1939 he would be managing three players being
paid three times more than he
was. West Indian society had been turned upside-down by a combination of
cricket’s meritocracy and the free market.
The
correspondence between Mallett and Kidney reflected their distaste with the new
order. Mallett wrote to Kidney in September 1938: “All of them are lacking in
any sense of gratitude, all of them have become gentlemen with expensive tastes
and with an immense idea of their importance.”
When Mallett
writes to the three players he addresses them by their surnames. Learie
Constantine is just Constantine, for all that he was to end his life as Baron
Constantine of Maraval in Trinidad and Nelson in the County Palatine of
Lancaster. But the players always address Mallett as Mr Mallett. Even 75 years
after the event it makes for uncomfortable reading.
But it is
wrong to see Mallett as a personification of prejudice. He worked for the
establishment of West Indian cricket from 1906 right up to his death in
November 1939. There is no sign that he received any payment for this, indeed
in his correspondence with WICBC members he is often urged to claim his
expenses. Kidney and deputy MCC secretary Pelham Warner tried to sort out the
tangle of monies due after the tour and noted that Mallett had always dealt
with this type of “detail” in the past. Modern Test cricket owes something to
the unpaid labour of Richard Mallett.
Although 80 years
old in 1938, Mallett played an important part in convincing the more old-school
elements of the West Indian cricket establishment that paying West Indies
players was unavoidable. And he was no cartoon racist. In October 1938
Constantine wrote to Mallett: “I have not read the Barbados paper on the
subject of discrimination as you so kindly mentioned, and should be pleased if
you could forward same on to me when you are done with them. I know enough
though to be able to appreciate your feelings of surprise and regret. I too am
sorry.”
Mallett tried
to smooth over the vexed issue of the £50 clothing allowance in a rare face-to-face
meeting with Martindale and Headley on 15 August. Headley and Martindale remained adamant
that the deal was £600 plus expenses plus an additional £50 clothing allowance,
and eventually the WICBC decided they would have to concede the clothing
allowance. Martindale was a good shop steward – now he and Headley had better
terms than Constantine had accepted. Contracts were drawn up but there was
still one more twist in the tail.
This time it was Constantine who became aware of
the offer that had been made to Martindale and Headley. He felt that the parity
they had achieved compromised an earlier agreement that he would receive
preferential terms. And there was such an agreement, although it was informal
in nature. Constantine had written to Mallett in March 1938, asking: “Am I
going to be the senior professional engaged, not merely from the point of view
of age and experience, but also from the point of remuneration?” From
subsequent correspondence between the WICBC and MCC, it’s apparent Mallett gave
Constantine the assurance he was looking for. But the WICBC didn’t consider the
word of a gentleman to be contractually binding.
In January
1939 Constantine took the long journey back to the West Indies to argue his
case. The WICBC was determined not to budge. Throughout 1938 they had suspected
that the three professionals were working together to force up their wages. In
July 1938 the WICBC had written to Mallett, complaining: “You were only too
right when you suspected that the three of them would get together and hold a
pistol to our heads. Headley would have taken £500 plus clothing allowance.”
It’s unlikely
that the three professionals were colluding. Both Martindale and Constantine
put forward their arguments for increased wages in terms of what was fair
rather than brute market forces. They may have felt this was a way to ask for
more money without seeming greedy, but the concern over parity rings true. If
money had been the most important thing for any of the three, they
could have remained contracted to their league clubs and earned more playing one half-day match per week than from the six-days-a-week slog of the
1939 tour.
Even if the
original intention had been that the three professionals would act in concert,
the eventual result was a rift between Martindale and Constantine. Peter Mason’s
2008 biography of Constantine records a “vituperative” correspondence between
the two former friends. It must have made for an interesting tour.
Whether or
not they were being duped by the three professionals, the WICBC decided that
they weren’t going to make any significant improvements to the contract that
Constantine had signed. Constantine’s account is that he was offered a small share
in any profits from the tour. He left the West Indies without committing to play,
but ultimately the desire for one final series proved stronger than his
disappointment over the way he had been treated. In fact, things were worse
than Constantine thought as he was still unaware that Martindale and Headley
were to receive a clothing allowance. Eventually the WICBC extended the £50 to
Constantine to prevent any further ructions.
The third, and final
pre-war, Test was at The Oval, with barrage balloons tethered to the
gasometers; hovering above the cricket. It was a draw and Constantine – in what
turned out to be his last Test – took five wickets in the first innings and
scored a quick 70 runs. The remaining scheduled games of the tour were
cancelled and early termination meant there were, apparently, no
profits for Constantine to share in. The West Indies team sailed for home but
Constantine remained in England and worked for the Ministry of Labour
throughout the war.
Despite the
unpleasantness and recriminations, the contract negotiations of 1939 created a
template for Test cricket in the post-war era. It established that players
would be paid to play, but it wasn’t a simple triumph for market forces. The three
players had accepted less money to play Tests than they could have got in the
Lancashire leagues, Test cricket had established itself as the measure of
cricketing worth.
The
settlement also demonstrated cricket could afford non-white West Indian cricketers
financial security whilst enabling them to represent their countries and
communities. After the Second World War that mixture of financial incentives
and national pride was the fuel that powered a West Indian domination of world cricket.
Comments
Post a Comment