A Game Sustained

18 2: Keeping going: 1914-1915 ‘ The Mayor of Keighley...remarked that cricket was a good game, but we in England were to-day engaged in a bigger and more serious game – the game of war.’ Leeds Mercury, 31 August 1914 On 1 August 1914, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph printed a selection of photographs indicating just how close Europe was to conflict. One showed enthusiastic demonstrations in Paris, another a meeting in Belgrade in favour of war, and a third one depicted Serbian nationals returning home to fight. Despite these disturbing images, the paper still retained a column headed ‘Sports and Pastimes’, where its correspondent asked rather parochially, ‘What would a great European war mean for English sport?’ Seeing one possible bright side, the paper added that various popular sports might now come in useful, in particular shooting but also cycling, given how warfare had now speeded up with the advent of aeroplanes and airships. As political events took their course, the Yorkshire county side travelled to Old Trafford for the Roses game. Here ‘Old Ebor’ commented that it was difficult to concentrate on cricket, ‘but holiday-makers have to pass the time somehow, and it was not surprising to find the trains to Old Trafford crowded.’ Nevertheless, he added that the ‘shadow of war’ was on the match and there was the prospect that the Yorkshire captain Sir Archibald White (an officer in the Territorials) and Lancashire players, R.H.Spooner (a reservist and government horse purchaser and transport agent in Lincolnshire) and A.H.Hornby (who played a similar role in Cheshire) might all leave at short notice. Replacements were identified, and Hornby was indeed called away on the first day. Despite the war and the damp conditions, some 8,000 people were still present. The Bank Holiday of early August 1914 was a strange affair, with many anxiously wondering how the government would respond. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph commented that: