A Game Sustained

36 Keeping going: 1914-1915 was training in England until 19 April 1915, before being rushed into an engagement in France – a week later he was dead. Some had been opening bowlers, hard-hitting batsmen or effective all-rounders, while others were captains or prize winners with village or town clubs. There were local players with no ambitions beyond representing the place where they had grown up, and others for whom the game had been their livelihood. Some were teenagers, killed almost on arrival in France, while others survived several years like Alonza Green, a well-known cricketer in Sheffield’s Hallamshire League, who died on NewYear’s Day 1918 in Palestine, having enlisted in 1914. Many were stalwarts of their club sides like Captain G.B.Simpson, captain of the Harrogate Cricket Club, who died of wounds received in 1916. His portrait was later hung in the club pavilion and a stained-glass window was placed in a church in the town in his memory. 32 Others who had played the game – some too old or not fit enough for the services – were employed in war work at home. Many cricketers were employed in the Leeds Shell Factory, for example, and in 1915 among those working in the Huddersfield National Shell Factory were George Hirst, Wilfred Rhodes and Schofield Haigh. Others in munitions during the war included B.B.Wilson (Yorkshire 1906-14), Thomas Birtles (Yorkshire 1913-24) and Ernest Smith (Yorkshire 1914-26). It was clear that this was no easy option, particularly when the national munitions crisis of 1915 forced factories to introduce longer working hours. One well-known professional was quoted in an article in the Yorkshire Evening Post saying that the ‘close confinement and continuous work’ of a munitions factory meant that if ‘the cricketing munitioner fails to do himself justice, perhaps the disappointed onlooker will remember this.’ Later the same summer, George Hirst ceased munitions work as it had proved more tiring than expected, although he did restart after a break. The younger Wilfred Rhodes was a chargehand responsible for finishing shells off and overseeing 12 girls on machines. Later, he managed the day output of the factory, working 12 hour days, and became very interested in the machinery. For those contributing in