Alfred William Pullin, known by the pseudonym Old Ebor (30 July 1860 – 23 June 1934), was a British sports journalist who wrote primarily about rugby union and cricket.

Considered by critics to be one of the greatest authorities in the country on his two sports, he wrote a daily column using his pseudonym "Old Ebor" for 40 years.

[1] Pullin first worked in journalism in 1880, as Castleford district reporter on the Wakefield Express[2] before moving to write for other local newspapers in Cleckheaton and Bradford.

[2] With a family background in rugby union, he played for Cleckheaton as three quarter back in the early 1880s, but was not successful enough to pursue his sporting career.

"[10] The book arose from a series of articles written over the winter of 1898 for the Yorkshire Evening Post,[11] in which he interviewed former players and reflected their experiences after retirement.

He held a deep regard for the players, and found it difficult to contemplate the forlorn situation and desperate straits that several of the old Yorkshire cricketers he interviewed were faced with.

[11] Pullin later wrote about Thewlis: "The moral responsibilities of cricket managers, so far as a player is concerned, should surely not end with the termination of his active career.

"[12] There had already been public debate on the fate of retired cricketers,[14] and counties had improved pay and conditions for their professional players.

Swanton, a press box colleague for the last few years of Pullin's career, writes: "It was his revelations about the straits of poverty to which some of these heroes of the past were reduced that first roused the conscience of the public and the county committees, Yorkshire's not least.

It stated that, of these times, he "wrote with a keenness of judgement, a descriptive style, and a fund of anecdote that made the games live again".

Pawle writes: "For the vast Yorkshire cricketing public Old Ebor wrote at inordinate length, unhampered by any consideration of literary style—he was one of the severely factual school—and it amazed me how any pigeon ever struggled into the air when shackled to one of his weighty effusions.

"[19] Lord Hawke, writing a foreword to his history of Yorkshire, referred to Pullin as the non-playing member of the county team: "His criticisms on our side form an invaluable guide to the captain, his enthusiasm is contagious, but never allows his judgement to become unbalanced, whilst his eloquent writings on cricket have gone to every part of the world in which there are lovers of the game ...

'"[5] Hawke later said that Pullin's judgement of young cricketers was very good, and that "through his writing he did much to assist the Yorkshire club in encouraging the game and its players".

Although his reputation was later obscured by writers such as Neville Cardus, Allison believes that "Pullin's greatest achievement was to define the role of the journalist in sport as the critic, popularizer, and interpreter of a particular team to its public.

His early association with churches, through his father, gave him an interest in ecclesiastical music; he often played the harmonium to entertain himself and his family.

[2] Upon his death, senior figures from Yorkshire County Cricket Club paid tribute to his influence, and his dignity and zealousness were praised by the Leeds branch of the National Union of Journalists.

[6] Hutton, who had just broken into the Yorkshire team aged 18, wrote that he "had just got into the habit of looking for that kindly, alert, grey-bearded face of Mr Pullin's either among the players before the day's play or in a Press-tent".