A Game Sustained

8 1: Cricket, war and the ethical dilemma During the cricket season it was normal for the president of the Bradford Cricket League, J.J.Booth, to visit each of the competition’s clubs. Booth, a wholesale chemist and druggist from Idle, near Bradford, was to hold a prominent position in Yorkshire cricket administration for more than a quarter of a century, including with the Bradford League and the Yorkshire Cricket Federation. He was a cultured man with musical interests, and was known for his often outspoken convictions on many subjects. This particular spring, he dropped by Pudsey St Lawrence’s ground – ‘a gem in a setting of palatial residences’ – for their match with neighbours, Pudsey Britannia. The following week he looked in at Laisterdyke, where a group of men had given the club a reputation for rowdiness and ‘filthy language’, and was no doubt pleased to learn that action had been taken. His visit to Saltaire was more to his liking; a ‘sight for the gods’ he called it, while at Keighley he had not expected to come across a packed ground alive with children. Such were the varied delights of one of the best organised cricket leagues in the country, established in 1903 in an effort to attract large crowds by arranging competitive cricket. The only thing unusual about Booth’s tour of the grounds was that this was 1917 and Britain was in the third full summer of the First World War. The ‘Great War’ was a conflict of unprecedented horror, death and destruction. The United Kingdom mobilised over 6,000,000 men. There were over 2,500,000 casualties, with over 720,000 dead. 12 per cent of British and Irish personnel died, around 1.6 per cent of the total population. Civilians too were caught up in the fighting to a previously unknown degree, with 1,239 people killed on British soil by German air raids. 4 The war lasted for more than four years, a period of terrible savagery. In these circumstances, even at this distance, some may consider it extremely tasteless that something as trivial as cricket continued to be played in a country at war. How was it possible for some to be fighting and dying while others enjoyed an afternoon of sport? It is a