A Game Sustained

32 Keeping going: 1914-1915 matches already organised to be played as friendlies. The North Yorkshire and South Durham Cricket League and Barkston Ash Cricket Association took a similar approach, the latter noting that nine of the regulars of one of its clubs were away serving. As eight of the ten clubs in the Airedale and Wharfedale Cricket League wanted to continue, it went ahead without medals for the champions, but the Doncaster and District Cricket League disbanded its second division as some clubs were unable to raise a team, and decided to play its first division fixtures as friendlies. Clubs took decisions based on their own circumstances and the prevailing mood of members and officials. In Goole, 30 members of the cricket club joined the forces, so the club decided to abandon the game for the summer. Guiseley dropped out of the Airedale and Warfedale Cricket League. Calverley was reportedly unsure whether it could put together a team given that its young men were working up to 70 hours a week in local factories. It was therefore suggested they were better off in bed when they had free time, but eventually the club decided to run one team. Because of the distances involved in fulfilling fixtures, Scarborough Cricket Club abandoned plans for a formal match programme but announced it would play friendly matches among its players on Saturday afternoons. The club dispensed with the services of a professional, as did Dewsbury and Savile Cricket Club which decided to play only amateurs in 1915. In contrast, other clubs expected to be largely unaffected. For example, Penistone Road Baptist Mission, members of the Hallam and District League in Sheffield, reported that 90 per cent of its members were unfit for the army and the rest were on government work and so still living in the area. Some clubs shut altogether, particularly in rural areas. After praising the performances of 1914, the President of Sleights Cricket Club in North Yorkshire argued on moral grounds that it was not right to applaud success on the cricket field when men were risking their lives on the battlefield and, given the other demands on people’s finances, it was also not appropriate to ask for subscriptions. Other members went