A Game Sustained

104 5: Struggling through to the end: 1918 ‘Cricket isnowchieflyengaging theattentionofMr.Atkins... Out of the trenches, into the rest billets, and the game’s the thing. There are clubs and team competitions on quite an elaborate scale, and the league tables, published in battalion orders, are scrutinised and discussed with quite as much eagerness as in the old days, at home, over the “Cricket Post”. Yorkshire Evening Post, 13 July 1918 At its annual meeting in February 1918, members of Thackley Cricket Club, to the north of Bradford, were congratulated on its successful finances but were warned that the outlook remained ‘dark, very dark at present’. Such was the mood of numerous clubs throughout the county as the war carried on towards its fourth anniversary. At the start of 1918, the situation in the conflict on the Western Front was finally balanced and as one history has put it, ‘the inconclusive and bloody Western offensives had led to war weariness on both the home and fighting fronts.’ 68 The impact in England was felt in many ways; the Easter break was abandoned, and travel was increasingly difficult, so that many workers who could take a holiday had no choice but to spend it at home. Despite the continuing tragedies abroad and the anxiety at home, the debate continued about the future of cricket once peace came. In early February 1918, the former Yorkshire and England player, Lieut-Col.F.S.Jackson, now a Yorkshire Member of Parliament, told the Society of Yorkshiremen in London that the games of the country were of national importance and sportsmen should think how they would be reconstructed after the war. He was certain that every Englishman, and especially every Yorkshireman, wanted sports to be kept going, and played better than ever. When soldiers returned home, he urged, it was important that the cinema was not all that was on offer. Even though his former county colleague, Lord Hawke, as President of MCC, again made reference to the possibility