A Game Sustained

23 Keeping going: 1914-1915 Famously, W.G.Grace then wrote a letter which appeared in The Sportsman on 27 August, stating ‘it is not fitting at a time like the present that able-bodied men should play day after day and pleasure-seekers look on.’ He called on all first- class cricketers to set a good example without delay in this hour of need. Whatever influence this letter may have had, it did not stop the last round of county games being played as British soldiers were killed in France. 24 The growing seriousness of the situation began to be discussed widely among cricketers. At a Yorkshire Cricket Council committee meeting in late August 1914, a circular from the War Office was read out (and later circulated to member clubs), calling upon athletes to band together for rifle practice. Members of Harrogate Cricket Club were reported to have volunteered for training and one end of the Kursaal grounds was put aside for shooting. There was also a discussion at the meeting about the cancellation of a game between Leeds and King Cross on the Headingley ground, which had already suffered ‘appalling’ devastation to the grass caused by the 600 horses tethered there. Failure to fulfil the fixture was excused because of this damage, described as ‘heart-breaking for anyone connected with the club.’ At Driffield in the East Riding, the cricket ground was also taken over at the start of the war and occupied by the military so that cricket had to be suspended, leading to a financial loss for the season. Despite the growing sense of crisis, Yorkshire continued its southern tour at Weston-super-Mare (where the sands were swarming with children) on 27 and 28 August. However, Somerset appeared to be in no mood for the contest and the game was memorable mainly for remarkable figures of 5-16 and 10-35 in just 15.5 overs from left-arm slow- medium bowler, Alonzo Drake. One reporter called it a ‘quaint’ day’s play and blamed the newly-laid wicket (‘full of hidden treachery’ and prepared ‘crudely’ with soot by a local clergyman according to ‘Old Ebor’) for many of the dismissals. Yorkshire then moved on to Brighton for the final championship game of the season, starting on 31 August,