Time & Perspective Quote by Frank Woolley

Nostalgia, in Woolley’s hands, isn’t a soft-focus memory; it’s a quiet complaint about who gets to belong. “Those were the great days” frames the past as a golden age, but the telling clause is the one that follows: “when plenty of amateurs could spare time for cricket.” The hinge is “spare time” - not talent, not love of the game, but leisure. Woolley is pointing at a social arrangement where cricket’s amateur ideal depended on something sturdier than sportsmanship: class privilege.

In early 20th-century English cricket, “amateur” didn’t mean casual. It often meant financially insulated - men who could treat training, travel, and multi-day matches as a genteel pastime because someone else was covering the bills. Woolley, a Kent and England great who lived through the professional-amateur divide, knew how that distinction shaped status. Amateurs were frequently captains and public faces; professionals supplied much of the labor and were paid, yet socially marked. His line reads like affectionate remembrance and a sly admission that the old setup only worked when a certain stratum had the freedom to play at seriousness.

The intent is less “bring back the old days” than “notice what changed.” Modern life - industrial schedules, professionalization, the shrinking of idle time - squeezes out the conditions that made amateur cricket plentiful. The subtext is sharp: when leisure becomes scarce, “amateurism” stops being a virtue and starts looking like a luxury brand. Woolley’s lament preserves cricket’s romance while exposing its economic scaffolding.