From 'slaves' to £200,000 a week

When Wayne Rooney picks up his reported £200,000 pay packet this week he might care to spare a thought for the men who made such riches possible.

For all those footballers, in fact, who, in the week John F Kennedy became the 35th president of the United States, stood full square behind their own union and ushered in a new era.

An era which on 18 January, 1961, saw the abolition of football's maximum wage which had capped players' pay at 20 a week. 'League agree to end the soccer slave contract,' was how one newspaper headline described it. 'Hill's Hour of Triumph,' screamed another, focusing on Jimmy Hill's role as the players' union leader in the negotiations which saw the clubs and the league back down to the demands of the players.

Some might say footballers, in the half-century which has passed, have gone from 'slaves' to pampered millionaires who no longer have a relationship with the fans who help to pay their wages. Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, citing the 34,000 visits by PFA members to charities and good causes over the past 12 months, puts it another way.

"It created a greater mobility of labour," Taylor said. "And I wouldn't have a single regret. (The maximum wage) put an artificial ceiling on a player's unique ability. A football player is as entitled as an artist, a musician or an actor to get the reward he deserves. Many players have brought a lot of pleasure to a lot of people."

In the 1950s when England winger Tom Finney famously juggled playing with plumbing and went to the match on the local bus, unrest had been simmering for some time, mostly at the unjust transfer system. It culminated in George Eastham famously going on strike at Newcastle when they refused to grant him a transfer to Arsenal at the end of his contract.

In those days there was a 'retain and transfer' system which allowed clubs to retain the registration at the end of a player's contract, preventing him from moving while under no obligation to pay him. It was known by players as the 'slavery contract' and it fuelled disaffection, especially among the top stars.

It is why Brian Clough, then a prolific striker at Middlesbrough, was a staunch supporter of the strike action over the maximum wage, saying: "I would expect the right to negotiate my contract the same as any person in any profession."

The future of football effectively was changed forever at a meeting in December 1960 when some of the most down-to-earth players in the country in the north met and voted by 254 votes to six to withdraw their labour.Hill and the union had their mandate to smash a system which had seen businessmen owners bank massive gate receipts from huge crowds without putting back a penny into football's infrastructure and little more into the pockets of the stars who attracted the fans.

Once it was smashed Johnny Haynes, in a publicity coup by Fulham chairman Tommy Trinder, soon became the first 100-a-week footballer. The genie was out of the bottle and no one, apart from greedy chairmen, begrudged the nation's top footballers their newly-won fortune. But that was in the days when a player might earn twice the average weekly wage if he was lucky. These days, with Rooney reportedly on 200,000 a week and Manchester City's Carlos Tevez estimated to be on even more, and with City's wage bill standing at around 500million a year, players are slaves no longer.

TIMELINE

1879: Lancashire club Darwen cause a scandal when it is revealed they had been paying two Scots, Fergie Suter and James Love.

1885: Professionalism legalised.

1901: 4-a-week wage limit is introduced.

1922: Maximum wage grows to 8 a week (6 in the summer).

1961: New PFA new chairman Jimmy Hill finally wins abolition of maximum wage. Johnny Haynes becomes first 100-a-week player.

1979: Peter Shilton becomes the best-paid player in Britain with a new contract at Forest worth 1,200 a week.

1994: Chris Sutton becomes first 10,000-a-week footballer when Blackburn sign him from Norwich.

1995: Bosman ruling allows out-of-contract players free transfers and therefore higher wages.

2000: Roy Keane becomes first player to top 50,000 a week with a new contract at Manchester United worth 52,000 weekly.

2001: Sol Campbellmoves from Tottenham to Arsenal to become the first 100,000-a-week player.

2010: Carlos Tevez is first 1m-a-month player - weekly wages from Man City claimed to be 286,000.