The first
professional footballers
Blackburn Olympic: FA Cup
winners 1883
Many of the new football
clubs were bought by factory owners. These men saw the
opportunity to make money from football. They also realised
that crowds wanted to see the best players.
Soon the clubs began competing for the players, but FA
rules banned them from paying them. Some clubs ‘helped’
players without giving them money directly. They gave them
places to live and ‘presents’ of food and clothes. Grimsby,
for example, gave new players a crate of fish!
Suter and
Love
In 1879 Darwen, a team from a
small Lancashire town, included two young Scotsmen, Fergie
Suter and James Love. Love and Suter were secretly employed
by the Darwen football club. This meant that they were the
first professional footballers.
The ‘gentlemen’ of the FA in London fought hard to keep the
game amateur. In 1882 they banned all payments except match
expenses and the replacement of lost wages. The new rule
was disliked by many clubs from the North and the Midlands.
Most continued to secretly pay their players.
West Ham
In 1884 the London club Upton
Park (now West Ham) complained to the FA. They accused
Preston of paying its players. The FA expelled Preston from
the FA Cup, but their manager, William Sudell refused to
apologise. ‘Preston are all professionals,’ he told the FA
in January 1885.
Preston threatened to lead thirty-six clubs into a new
association. This left the FA with no choice but to accept
professionalism. In July 1885, the rule forbidding the
paying of players was removed.