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‘It's all friendly down there’: the Club Cricket Conference, amateurism and the cultural meaning of cricket in the South of England

As the late Victorian and Edwardian upper classes' power declined, some of the sporting elites were determined to maintain their social and cultural hegemony. Within amateur club cricket, this was to be maintained by the Club Cricket Conference (CCC), the aims of which were to ‘control and safeguard amateur cricket along strictly non-competitive lines’. Although largely reactionary, the CCC, due in no small part to its social origins, exerted a disproportionate influence over amateur club cricket in the South of England – especially with regard to the aggressive suppression of leagues. Although the historiography suggests that the CCC were very successful in this endeavour, leagues and cups existed throughout the South from the early 1880s. The historical oversight of what became a predominantly working-class mode of cricket, and the games cultural meaning, reflects the social origins and influence of the CCC's elite founders (and many historians) over the game and its image.