A Game Sustained

169 strict adherence to their rules. Clubs had recovered and had returned to their perennial task of raising funds and trying to generate interest in their local communities. Spectators had flocked back to the game at all levels in unprecedented numbers. New forms of the game had appeared and made for a more vibrant and broadly-based sport which at least seemed more conscious of the need to pay greater attention to the expectations of its followers. Nevertheless, the effects of the conflict continued to shape the game. It could be seen in the memorials created to those players who had died in the war and was acknowledged in the gaps in club sides which were now filled by numerous younger men. It was heard in the calls to renew the game on patriotic grounds, not least it was argued, because it was what those who had fallen would have wanted. The war also gave a new twist to the old debate about amateur-professional distinctions, and some asked how it could be that men from all walks of life had fought side by side in the trenches and yet still could not enter a first-class cricket field by the same gate at some venues. And arguably, it could be seen in the emergence of a less deferential generation of professionals such as Abe Waddington, who rode his motorcycle fast (and occasionally off the road) and was ticked off for referring to amateurs by their first names. Such men had had life experiences during the conflict which had changed their views of the world. How did the game in Yorkshire survive the First World War? Organised cricket continued to be played throughout the war in Yorkshire. Although it is hard to generalise, it seems to have done so more effectively in the heavily-populated urban areas where it was easier to get teams together and distances to travel to matches were shorter. It was less the case in those rural areas well away from towns, where the loss of a number of young men could have greater impact, as well as places at the extremities of the county. Areas with high concentrations of people in protected occupations Concluding thoughts: Cricket, Yorkshire and the Great War