A Game Sustained

111 Struggling through to the end: 1918 to raise £156 for charities. Inevitably, Booth took the opportunity to impress upon the visitors the scale of the cricket in the Bradford area and in particular highlight that over £4,000 had been raised for war purposes and 40,000 people had witnessed the final rounds of the Priestley Cup. Nevertheless, the tensions between league and county cricket continued. The 1918 season on the field In 1918, the Yorkshire Post noted that there would again be no attempt to play cricket on ‘orthodox lines’ but felt there was support for playing as many games as possible, especially for the various war charities. At the start of the season it was rumoured that Yorkshire wanted to play Lancashire at Whitsuntide and August Bank Holiday, although the paper feared the latter side could not put out anything like a representative team. Good early season weather encouraged large crowds and around 25,000 again watched Bradford League matches on a Saturday. At the start of June, Denton made 102 out of 193 for Armley, while Barnes again took wickets – eight for 28 against Bingley – showing that he was ‘quite out of his class’ when bowling to the average Bradford League batsman. However, local clubs faced significant new problems. For some, catering for those who turned up became an increasing challenge given wartime shortages and rationing. Spectators had to provide their own sugar, and tea was increasingly difficult to obtain. Clubs were encouraged to provide coffee, cocoa and minerals, and saccharine in tablet form, but only plain buns, biscuits, or jam sandwiches were available on many grounds. As the season continued, a number of clubs also struggled with illness. In the match between Brighouse and Clifton, for example, 11 players were unable to take part and one was struck down during the game. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner linked these occurrences with the outbreak of ‘Spanish’ or ‘Flanders’ flu, which was now widespread in the area and which would affect millions across the world around that time. Four Tong Park players were infected,