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.