A Game Sustained

16 Cricket, war and the ethical dilemma Ebor’ reported that a former Yorkshire cricketer had told him that such collections were ‘entirely at disharmony with the times’. A fourth response – seen most visibly in the unique setting of the Bradford League – was that if cricket was to be offered as a distraction for tired workers at the end of a hard week it should be high quality, competitive and essentially no different to that played pre-war. One outside observer of wartime cricket in Bradford was Fred Root, the Derbyshire, Worcestershire and England bowler, who was invalided back from France in 1916 and who, after a period of recovery in Bradford, began to turn out for Bowling Old Lane Cricket Club. He later wrote that ‘The enthusiasm was tremendous and the rivalry the keenest I had ever seen. No pottering about; ‘Get runs or get out’ was the order, and the crowd saw to it that those instructions were obeyed…[they] clamoured for thrills and they usually received their money’s worth.’ 17 There was much criticism of such seriously competitive cricket throughout the conflict but J.J.Booth was a strong defender of the right of the league to provide entertainment as long as it did not affect the war effort. In a speech inAugust 1916 entitled ‘Cricket in War-Time: A Defence’, he dismissed those who had called the competitive approach ‘scandalous’ and noted that the league clubs had provided 500 soldiers, raised £634 in the 1915 and 1916 seasons for charities and war funds (equal to about £60,000 today 18 ) and paid over £470 in the Entertainment Tax to the government in 1916. The following year he deployed almost every argument to defend the Bradford approach, emphasising that: Our policy is not based on selfishness or self-interest, but public service... [there] need be no qualms of conscience. No man will be playing this year who has not a solid reason for not being in the Army or Navy. No club need have any scruples against engaging ‘stars’. The club do not pay their wages. The public ask for these men and the public pay. 19 Others used similar arguments in favour of playing