A Game Sustained

161 Renewed joy: 1920 area on the Scarborough ground. The late summer also saw the unveiling of the tablet which Yorkshire County Cricket Club erected in memory of Major Booth. A dedication service was held in Pudsey Parish Church, attended by F.C.Toone and members of the Yorkshire committee, as well as J.J.Booth and the Mayor and Corporation of Pudsey. A large number of local cricketers packed the church to remember the greatest Yorkshire cricketer to die in the war. In Sheffield, the Sheffield and District Cricket Association focused its attention on endowing a bed in a hospital, which required £1,000, and the fund – which had only reached just over £109 in 1919 – was kept open during the summer of 1920. It then became the focus of considerable attention as an open letter appeared in the press in July 1920 reminding cricketers that it was due to the efforts of those who had fought that they had been able to resume their favourite game. Collections were made at Bramall Lane and numerous local matches were held. In August, the Star Green’un opened a shilling fund and repeatedly urged local cricketers to contribute. By October 1920, the Fund had raised £673 and ideas were suggested for how to gather the remainder, with clubs urged to run whist drives and dances over the winter. The club season of 1920 The efforts that went into reviving clubs throughout Yorkshire over the winter of 1919/20 appeared to pay off in the second summer after the war. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph claimed that ‘Every club has recovered from the effects of the war’ and in May 1920, a reporter on another paper commented that a stroll around Sheffield: revealed an astonishing state of affairs. It was cricket everywhere – on the hill side and in the valley, pitches laid on lop-sided fields and grounds, and where the fielders must have had trying times in the rough outfields. All were not in flannels; youths and maidens were scoring, but all-round happiness reigned supreme. 112 The local Star Green’un paper regularly published the scores of around 100 matches in the Sheffield area, which suggested