Constant insecurity was the hallmark of a career in professional sport. Every day the professional sportsman faced the possibility that there would be no work tomorrow: losing in a tight finish, a poor afternoon in the field, being the victim of a nasty tackle could all lead to non-selection. Accentuating the anxiety was the annual trauma of contract renewal, for few employers in the sports industry were willing to ‘guarantee’ work for more than a year. In horse-racing a few outstanding riders managed to obtain retainers for a two- or three-year period, but most were for a single season. The majority of jockeys, however, did not hold retainers and had to join the demeaning, and often demoralising struggle for mounts on a day-to-day basis. In soccer the retain-and-transfer system operated on an annual basis - in 1891 the Football League Management Committee specifically forbade the signing of players for more than one season at a time - and, if not retained, the unwanted footballer had to hope that some other club would be willing to pay for what was a rejected product. Sheffield Wednesday did concede one of their players a two-year contract after he had been a first-team regular for a couple of seasons, but when this led to further demands a board decision was made not to sign any player for longer than twelve months. Cricketers, too, generally obtained only annual contracts, sometimes with a guaranteed number of matches, though in 1898 Willie Quaife, Warwickshire's star batsman, after several requests and a threat to go to league cricket, persuaded the county to grant him a five-year engagement.