A Game Sustained

46 Keeping going: 1914-1915 Cup. He later sought and secured exemption from military service, although he was criticised by a tribunal in 1917 for not attending the minimum number of drills on which his exemption had depended. The continuingmisgivings that many had that holding cricket competitions for money was inappropriate during wartime only grew as the reality of the conflict was more visible in Yorkshire during 1915. One feature of the summer was the first sightings on cricket grounds of wounded soldiers, many of whom were brought from their hospitals for fresh air and relaxation. In July, for example, Horsforth North Cricket Club hosted 90 soldiers from Cookridge Hospital. In Sheffield, 40 wounded soldiers attended a match at the invitation of the club in Hallam, where they were entertained to tea. At the end of the month, there was also a large gathering of injured men for a cricket match at Gledhow Hall, Leeds, organised by the Wounded Soldiers’ Entertainments Committee of the Leeds Commercial Temperance League. Convalescents from Harewood House were driven to watch the game. In Harrogate, the bank holiday was reportedly the busiest on record, and the local paper thanked those who had driven wounded soldiers to watch cricket matches. On occasions such men could also be seen playing cricket as part of their recuperation. In July, the Hallamshire Tennis Club entertained a group of ‘bent and maimed soldiers in stained khaki’, taking them on in a game of cricket. For a fitter group, a cricket match between soldiers at East Leeds War Hospital and Leeds Pawnbrokers was played. The Bradford League controversy As previously mentioned, a constant and controversial element of wartime cricket in Yorkshire was the role played by the Bradford League. At the end of May 1915, the Yorkshire Post commented that one of the reasons why league cricket was vetoed by some of the principal clubs of the county was that competitive or ‘spectacular’ cricket was ‘not seemly in war time’. Lancashire League clubs had taken a different view, as had the Bradford League, but the