A Game Sustained

74 Shocks to the system: 1916 At a similar meeting of the Bradford Cricket League, there was discussion about whether soldiers could be admitted to games without payment. J.J.Booth commented that he had been advised that complimentary tickets would have to be issued to allow free admission of umpires, scorers and players. Tickets to league matches would be 4d for men, 1½d for ladies and 1d for boys, all including tax. There was also discussion about the specific issue of tickets for patrons who did not actually attend the matches but joined to help the club financially. Booth had assumed this problem could be resolved by charging members with the tax only if they entered the ground, but the tax authorities would not accept this. For many, the new arrangements were confusing. In late May 1916, the Star Green’un commented that thousands of cricket clubs were completely ignorant of how the tax was to be levied. They had no turnstiles and no money to purchase the stamps to be added to the tickets, so they had just waited to be told what to do, but no one had advised them. ‘Old Ebor’ also mentioned a recent case which was solved only by one member giving his personal cheque at the bank for the sum needed to buy the tax tickets in advance, trusting it would be refunded. He said this seemed an inconvenient way of doing business and the Inland Revenue should not be surprised that people were grumbling. A second more helpful government decision was the introduction of daylight savings time in 1916. This was the first occasion on which an Act of Parliament had defined summer time as one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time. The move was designed to save energy and help the war effort. In advance, there was quite a lot of public opposition, but cricket clubs soon found it possible to play longer in the evening. The Huddersfield and District Cricket League, for example, decided to finish matches half an hour later in June and July. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner commented enthusiastically, noting that the extra hour of light ‘will make all the difference in the world, and matches will be worth beginning when several hours of good light are available.’