The Birth Of The Union

Facing up to the powers that were, they risked total banishment from the game: this is the story of the players who fought for financial and contractual justice for all.

The £4 a week maximum wage, set in 1900, meant that no player, regardless of talent, or experience, was free to negotiate higher earnings with his club, whether by way of bonuses or signing-on fees. Although the new ceiling was aimed mainly at the best-paid players, there was only token adherence to the new rule by the richer clubs. Some could afford 'better terms' and were determined to pay them in order to establish themselves in the top echelon.

Between 1901 and 1911 at least seven clubs were investigated and punished for financial irregularities, such as paying players 'under-the-counter' wages. Many clubs were thought to have been guilty but escaped punishment, having successfully disguised the money as 'presents' or payments for extra duties. Some clubs were less fortunate.

Middlesbrough, for instance, had been had been elected to the League in 1899 and reached Division One in 1902. One year later, at a cost of £10,000, they opened one of the finest grounds in the country, Ayresome Park. However, the expenditure stretched the club so much that a few years later it was struggling with falling attendances, heavy financial losses and poor on-field performances: in two years they failed to register a single away win.

In February 1905, in an attempt to improve their situation, the club startled the football world by paying a record £1,000 to Sunderland for their ace striker Alf Common. At the time the average transfer fee was about £300 to £500. The furore led to an investigation of the account books by the club's shareholders, who in turn alerted the FA. On November 17th 1905, Middlesbrough's directors admitted to making illegal payments to players worth some £#400 over the previous two seasons and creating fictitious accounts to conceal their actions. The FA fined them £250, and 11 of the 12 directors were suspended until January 1st 1908. One of the players, Teddy Gittens, was fined £10 for making false statements.

More significantly for the nascent Players Union would be the case of Manchester City. City had won the FA Cup for the first time in 1903, but the following season, after anonymous accusations of attempted bribery against their captain and star player, Billy Meredith, the complete cup-winning side was suspended and banned by the FA from ever playing for City again. Club directors (including Joshua Parlby, one of the original Football League founding members) were banned for life and the club was fined to within an inch of survival.

Meredith served an 18-month suspension and was eventually transferred to Manchester United, but he was now determined that players should get organised to fight their case for contractual and financial freedom. Within a few months of returning from suspension, on December 2nd 1907, he convened the first meeting of a new Association Football Players' Union at the Imperial Hotel, Manchester. Among those present were seven Manchester United players, two Manchester City players, plus representatives from Newcastle United, Bradford City, West Bromwich Albion, Notts County, Sheffield United and Tottenham Hotspur. Soon after, Manchester United goalkeeper Herbert Broomfield was offered the job of first full-time union secretary with a salary of £150 per annum for three years.

The new union saw its aim as not just financial and contractual freedom, but also the creation of a body that would help all professional footballers, no matter what their station, to obtain justice in dispute with their clubs, and restitution in the case of injury and punishment. The case of George Parsonage, a Fulham player suspended from football for life in 1909 for daring to ask for more than the regulatory £10 signing-on fee, was one particular high-profile case that galvanised his fellow professionals to join. The union started a petition on his behalf that eventually drew some 1,322 signatures. In the same year, following the advent of the Liberal Government’s Workmen’s Compensation Act and the subsequent establishment by the Football League of the Football Mutual Insurance Federation, the legal casework of the union would increase dramatically. But it was the union’s decision to affiliate to the National Federation of Trade Unions that brought it into direct conflict with its parent body, the FA.

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Fearing members would one day resort to strike action, the FA withdrew its support from the union and demanded that every player resign from it or else be banished from the game. Manchester United’s players, led by captain Charlie Roberts, refused and were promptly suspended by the club. They became the focal point for a summer-long battle of wills, which culminated in a stand-off at the beginning of the 1909/1910 season. With the League clubs facing the prospect of no games, the FA backed down, and the Manchester ‘Outcasts’ as they had been dubbed, won a famous victory. The union survived – but only just and at the expense of its wider Trades Union links. Between 1908 and 1914 the number of men and women assisted by the union would run into hundreds, and the amount the amount of money disbursed into thousands, but, because it could wield no industrial muscle, its impact on wages and contracts remained minimal. This was made clear in 1912 when it backed Herbert Kingaby, an ex-Aston Villa player, in his attempt to have the standard contract declared a restraint of trade. The High Court case was lost and the union was almost bankrupted. Subsequently, the conditions under which professional players laboured would continue to be a source of bitter contention.

* Adapted from the preface of For The Good Of The Game: The Official History Of The Professional Footballers’ Association – by John Harding

Reproduced by kind permission of the Professional Footballers' Association