Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(sporting) a regular attender, usu. at the races, the music-hall etc.

1888

Referee 23 Dec. in Ware (1909) 186/2: We may almost assume that the principle of heredity has once again asserted itself, and that the youthful ‘ofters’ whom I saw in the Haymarket the other night, all shirt front and fur collar, are the offspring of the very same sort of springalds who exploited themselves thirty years ago in the very self-same neighbourhood.