A Game Sustained

164 Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1920 The county cricket of 1919 was hastily organised and, to many, ill-conceived, and Yorkshire County Cricket Club was among those pleased to be returning to three-day cricket. Looking forward to the 1920 season, the club’smajor concern was to improve the state of its finances and increase its membership. Considering that everything had increased in cost, the club’s finances were deemed to be in a surprisingly good state, gate receipts having been above those of 1914, and subscriptions £900 up on the previous year. However, in January 1920, Lord Hawke told the county’s AGM that wages of the professionals had increased by about 60 per cent. The club intended to give further allowances and the increase in wages meant that £5,000 would be required for the coming season. He said the county thus needed around 3,500 members to enable it to pay its way, a figure which was increased to 4,000 in later appeals. On the question of county qualification, Yorkshire was responsible for a proposition that no player unwilling to pledge himself to assist his county when required would be able to play in any representative matches at home or tours abroad. This was promoted as a way of supporting the Test team but was primarily designed to counter the threat of the strongest leagues becoming seen as a credible alternative to the county game. As a result, there were rumours that the decisions of the authorities had ‘got the backs up’ of some professionals, and it seemed likely that certain players would throw their lot in with the leagues, given the pay that was on offer. An incident occurred almost straight away. When Cecil Parkin was selected to play for the Players against the Gentlemen at the The Oval in 1920, Yorkshire was vocal in opposing a step which, in its view, broke the resolution, unanimously agreed by the counties and confirmed by the MCC, that a player would not be chosen unless he pledged to assist his county when required. 113 On the other hand, Saturday starts for county matches were also a cause of anxiety for the leagues. J.J.Booth commented that it would now be ‘in open competition’ with the first- Renewed joy: 1920