A Game Sustained

35 Keeping going: 1914-1915 E.J.Radcliffe, who had played for Yorkshire between 1909 and 1911 including as captain, joined the Yorkshire Hussars and was wounded in action on 4 March 1915 when his foot was hit by shrapnel. Gunner Fairfax Gill, who played twice for Yorkshire in 1906 and was a professional at Paddock and Ossett, died in a Boulogne hospital on 1 November 1917. Others were also heavily involved. In early 1915, John Tasker, who had appeared for Yorkshire in 1912 and 1913, was guarding the pier at Rosslare Harbour in County Wexford in Ireland, awaiting the call for France where he went later in the year. The following August, he sent a cheque for his Yorkshire county subscription from the trenches and was full of praise for the ‘older’ members of the county side helping to raise funds for war charities back home. Captain (later Major) A.W.Lupton, Yorkshire captain between 1925 and 1927, was wrongly reported as dead in 1915 during the campaign in the Dardanelles, having been invalided home in 1914 from France. In November 1916, Lieut-Col H.S.Kaye (18 county appearances between 1907 and 1908) was also severely injured. He was reading when there was a sudden renewal of enemy artillery fire, which led to him being hit by shrapnel just above the heart and lung. Thousands of less well-known men with cricket connections fought with courage and were injured or killed. Numerous obituaries in the Yorkshire press emphasised the links with particular teams or noted their subject’s cricketing prowess, a clear indication of the significance of the game in contemporary life. Some men had appeared for Yorkshire 2 nd XI or represented other counties. One such soldier was Trooper Southwell from Filey, serving in the Honorable Artillery Company, who was killed in June 1915. He had appeared for Bedfordshire and the Public Schools XI in 1912 with some success. In 1917, his brother Edmund – also a respected cricketer – was killed. Others were promising newcomers fresh from school or college, such as Private Graham Hall. He had appeared for Saltburn Cricket Club before the war and then went to Bede College, Durham, where he made two centuries in the summer of 1914. His battalion