A Game Sustained

38 Keeping going: 1914-1915 presented for Alonzo Drake which explained his unfitness for military service. As a result, his £1 10s a week summer wages were started. 33 In the autumn, the committee resolved to pay 10s per week winter pay to the players conditional on involvement in Government work. 34 However, in December the club was informed that Drake had neither joined up nor taken a munition job, and thus his winter pay was forfeited. 35 It was then restarted in January 1916 when the club had evidence that he was doing munitions work. Similarly, in June 1915 the club heard that B.B.Wilson had not joined up ‘in accordance with the expressed wishes of the Committee’ and so his summer payments were stopped. As mentioned earlier, some people continued to hope that high-quality cricket could be played. However, on 5May 1915, Yorkshire County Cricket Club repeated that there would be no county games but promised that, should the war come to an early end, it would try and organise ‘as much cricket as possible during July and August.’ It urged existing county members to secure new ones, and to pay their subscriptions as soon as possible so that the club could meet its expenses. Such optimism contrasted with other evidence that the war was adversely affecting local cricket. Driving through North Yorkshire to watch a game in May, ‘Old Ebor’ noted that cricket pitches on village grounds were now overgrown. Over 100 men from the village of Masham – his destination - had gone to fight, which explained why the cricket pitch had not been tended very well. Despite the uncertainty, newspapers were still keen to cover games and in Sheffield the Star Green’un urged clubs to forward their handbooks or provide contact details so that the paper could send out ‘gossip sheets’ to capture player information. However, it announced that as so many of its staff had joined up, it would not be sending reporters to local matches. The season did not start well everywhere and in Sheffield it was reported that local cricket – perhaps unsurprisingly – lacked the normal enthusiasm. Many clubs had lost ‘scores’ of their players and, the paper added, those who were left suffered from ‘the ever present