A Game Sustained

24 Keeping going: 1914-1915 with the Sheffield Daily Telegraph regretting that the war had overshadowed high quality Yorkshire cricket, which would otherwise have ‘commanded universal attention.’ At this point, it still looked as if the Scarborough Festival would go ahead. This was presented positively as ‘another illustration of the ability of the British public to pursue the normal’, even though those involved made it clear they had seriously considered other options. At the end of August, however, the MCC decided to cancel matches for which it had promised to send teams, apparently because it had decided that the continuance of first-class cricket was ‘hurtful to the feelings of a section of the public.’ According to reports, the President of the local club and the Mayor of Scarborough urgently asked for the decision to be reconsidered, but in the end the club had no choice but to abandon the Festival. The news was received at Brighton and passed on to the team by Lord Hawke who had recently written to the Scarborough club to say ‘I am confident you will feel we have acted in the best interests of the game, and that you will readily and willingly bear your share in our great national trial.’ Although disappointed, the players told ‘Old Ebor’ that the best decision had been made in the circumstances. Some admitted they had had ‘little heart’ for the game for the past week or two, and Roy Kilner and Major Booth – the only two unmarried players in the Yorkshire team – said they were just waiting to go home to volunteer. Booth commented, ‘It is our duty, Mr Pullin; we cannot do anything else.’ For what it was worth, on the field, David Denton – who would play nearly 700 matches for the county between 1894 and 1920 – made 124 in Yorkshire’s highest of the season score of 461. Sussex matched them with over 400 but the game fizzled out on the third day, and at 4.40pm on 2 September 1914 was declared drawn so that the Yorkshire players could catch an early train home. It would be more than 1,700 days before the side would take to the field again for a first-class match. ‘Old Ebor’ commented that: