A Game Sustained

21 Keeping going: 1914-1915 cricket followers. Players wanted, it said, to ‘put themselves right with the public, and, more important still, with their own consciences.’ They realised how insignificant cricket was when possibly the ‘very existence of the Empire’ was at stake, and some of the Yorkshire players admitted to finding it hard to concentrate on cricket. On the other hand, the public had been exhorted to act normally as far as possible, and without such games it was suggested that many people would ‘have all too many hours for idleness and fretting on their hands.’ The article also noted a more practical factor – namely that while amateurs could easily cease playing immediately, professionals would lose out financially by at least £30 each after deducting expenses. It was also felt that it was difficult to argue that if cricket and football grounds were to be closed, theatres, music-halls, cinema shows and other places should remain open. Other commentators emphasised that sportsmen were ‘proverbially patriotic’ and so did not need to prove this by not playing their games. One immediate sign of this patriotismwas the decision by the Bradford Cricket League to give £100 to the Lord Mayor of Bradford’s fund, raised from games for the Priestley Cup, the premier cup competition for clubs in the Bradford area since 1904. A match was also organised between a Bradford League XI and an XI selected from the Bowling Old Lane and Bradford Council clubs to raise money. Elsewhere, a match in Keighley between teams of lawyers and doctors was held in aid of the local distress fund, and Tankersley United near Barnsley – clearly fearing the worst – offered its pavilion to the authorities as a convalescent home. Notwithstanding such patriotic acts some were upset and shocked at what they saw as the continuation of normality. Five men from Keighley contacted every county cricket club in the country to say that ‘Locally we are taking all steps to support our country in extreme state of affairs. Surprised that you continue to play cricket.’ The following week, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph included an article from a reporter who had walked around Sheffield on 22 August. Looking