A Game Sustained

50 Keeping going: 1914-1915 similarly unimpressed by Yorkshire’s proposals and held an emergency meeting. The club Chairman – rather inappropriately in the circumstances – commented that the crisis ‘was a matter of life and death’, stating it was impossible to maintain the ground without assistance from county games. A deputation to the county committee received an offer of just £50 and the possibility of a match at Park Avenue at the Bowling Tide holiday. The county’s Finance Committee minutes indicate that they considered the request for financial assistance carefully but refused for fear of creating a bad precedent. 43 The Bradford club was then told by Arthur Briggs, Chairman of Bradford (Park Avenue) Association Football Club Ltd and mortagee of the Park Avenue estate, that unless half of the £175 rent was paid on 1 May, the receiver would take possession. The club decided to approach the Lord Mayor for assistance, but then dropped out of the Bradford League, unable to pay its way, to be replaced by Bowling Old Lane. The committee of the Bradford Cricket League provisionally accepted an offer of the tenancy of the Park Avenue cricket ground, with the right to sub-let for county or local cricket, but uncertainty remained. Later, Briggs offered to dispose of the cricket ground for £10,000 to the revived Bradford Cricket Club, and by his death in March 1920, £8,000 had been raised. War charity matches One way that followers of cricket justified continuing was to organise games to raise money for war charities. These organisations played a number of roles, sending out ‘comforts’ to troops such as tobacco, cigarettes, blankets, socks, sweets, gloves and rugs, designed to make their lives more bearable. Others raised money to purchase more substantial items such as ambulances, or supported local hospitals which looked after wounded men. In the summer of 1915, these charity games were made more attractive by the involvement of Yorkshire’s professionals who were allowed (and expected) to participate. In July, a match for the benefit of the Red Cross Society involved some well-known players and in late August, in a match at Batley, George Hirst