A Game Sustained

28 Keeping going: 1914-1915 Other evidence of the impact of the war was everywhere. A letter in the Hull Daily Mail in November called on old cricketers from Hull to send cricket sweaters to the paper’s offices so they could be sent to the front, given how cold it was expected to get at night in Flanders. By early December, the correspondent had received 50 jumpers and asked for more. In Leeds, the pavilion and other buildings at Headingley was used for billeting recruits, the cricket field having been fenced off. There were also a series of mundane shortages. When the winning clubs in the Hallamshire Cricket League attended their annual meeting in October they could not be presented with their winners’ pennants because the manufacturers had not been able to supply them, such had been the recent demand for flags. And towards the end of the year, Illingworth St Mary’s Cricket Club postponed its annual dinner owing to exceptional circumstances – namely that the premises where it would be held might be needed at very short notice and a large number of members were working overtime. 27 Deciding how to respond Despite the uncertainty and urgent priorities brought about by the outbreak of war, some clubs still looked to the future. At the start of September, for example, Baildon Green advertised for a good fast bowler for the following season. The Huddersfield andDistrict Junior Cricket League appealed for applications from clubs for 1915, as did the Airedale and Wharfedale Cricket League, with ‘Early applications desired’. At the end of September, the draw for the 1915 Heavy Woollen District Challenge Cup – a competition running since 1883 in the Dewsbury, Batley and Ossett area – was made. Many clubs also held their annual meetings as normal to hand out prizes for the best performances of the 1914 season and celebrate the summer’s achievements, even if the mood was more sombre than normal and attendances well down with so many men away. At a higher level, the Yorkshire club’s general committee agreed payments to various players for the winter – Hirst,