The First Gentlemen v Players Match — Lord's, July 1806

Cricket in the early nineteenth century was a hierarchical game. The Gentlemen were amateur aristocrats and gentry — Beauclerk, E.H. Budd, the Earl of Winchilsea — while the Players were professional cricketers, drawn mainly from Hampshire, Kent and Surrey villages. The two groups played for the same teams routinely, and a match between them was a natural showcase of the social order. Derek Birley credits Beauclerk himself with the idea, though Thomas Lord and the Earl of Strathavon were also involved.

The match was promoted partly to advertise the Lord's Old Ground, partly as a high-stakes 1,000-guineas wager. The Gentlemen knew they could not field eleven amateurs strong enough to compete, hence the request for given men.

The match was advertised in The Morning Post on Monday 7 July 1806 as a 'Grand Match' between 'Nine Gentlemen with Wells and Lambert, against Eleven of England, for 1000 Guineas a side'. The teams that took the field differed slightly from the announcement: John Wells did not appear and Billy Beldham was given to the Gentlemen in his place. Lord Frederick Beauclerk captained the Gentlemen; Lambert (then 27) and Beldham (40) were the strongest professional cricketers of their day, drafted in to balance the sides. The Gentlemen scored 195 in their only innings, with Beauclerk top-scorer; the Players were dismissed for 69 and 112, losing by an innings and 14 runs. Beldham scored 16, took three catches and bowled William Fennex. A second match was played on 21 and 25 July (with an unscheduled break in the middle), this time with Beldham in the Players' team but Lambert retained for the Gentlemen; the Gentlemen won that one too. Because the Gentlemen had been given the two best professionals in the country, the victory was seen as something of a hollow triumph and the fixture lapsed for thirteen years before being revived in 1819. From 1822 it was played annually, sometimes more than once a season, until the formal abolition of amateur status in English cricket on 26 November 1962. The last match was played in September 1962 and the fixture was formally abolished by MCC in January 1963.

“A grand match between Nine Gentlemen with Wells and Lambert, against Eleven of England, for 1000 Guineas a side.”

Because the Gentlemen had needed two professionals to win, the fixture was discontinued. It was revived in 1819 with the format that became standard — straight Gentlemen v Players with no given men — and from 1822 became an annual or twice-annual fixture. By the late Victorian era it was the showpiece of the English domestic season.