A Game Sustained

165 class game, and he thought there would be no alternative but to move the date of the Priestley Cup final, otherwise the charities supported would suffer. He was also concerned that some counties were trying to stop their players appearing in league cricket. Booth considered there was ‘open and determined hostility’ by Yorkshire towards league cricket. He called it ‘the high-handed action of imperious autocracy’ and in the ‘pre-war spirit of the classes against the masses.’ It seemed that the county club and the powerful league authorities were on a collision course in the north of England and needed to find new ways of operating side by side. The county club also appeared to take a strong line when there were signs of individual players demonstrating too much independence. In June 1919, Yorkshire refused Wilfred Rhodes permission to play in the Gentlemen-Players match, to which he responded by asking for payment in lieu, which was turned down by the club. 114 The following year, George Hirst was told not to write articles for publication while playing for Yorkshire. Lord Hawke was adamant that ‘no man is capable of writing in an unbiased way about a match in which he is taking part. Morever, his attention cannot be properly concentrated on the game if he is thinking about what he should write about it directly he left the field.’ Whatever the tensions between the club and some of its players, most of the Championship-winning side were back in the spring of 1920 fit and ready to start again. By now they already had a reputation as a hard team to beat. Colonel Philip Trevor in the Daily Telegraph said that it was ‘just what a psychologist acquainted with the Yorkshire character would expect it to be. The Yorkshireman conserves and economises output, always seeming to have a bit in hand and producing it when needed.’ This was just as well as the players headed into a demanding schedule, for example, playing 22 days cricket in the month of June, often arriving in new hotels early in the morning after a long day in the field. The season started impressively with six wins, three by an innings, and it was not until the third week of June that Renewed joy: 1920