A Game Sustained

82 Shocks to the system: 1916 similar to the one played in 1915 and, although there was less interest, over 3,000 attended, including 500 injured soldiers from Rossendale hospitals. Lancashire was captained by J.T.Tyldesley (who appeared for the county between 1895 and 1923) and Yorkshire by George Hirst, although Rhodes, Denton and Haigh were unavoidably absent. Frank Woolley scored 116 for Lancashire with 19 fours, including five in succession off Drake. Rain stopped play when Yorkshire had reached 69 for one and the match was abandoned. Fitting cricket in around government work was a challenge for many of these players, and ‘Old Ebor’ commented that some would be pleased that the season was nearly over. He wrote that they had to obey the munitions manager and also respond to the endless demands to appear in charity matches, so that, for example: Drake, in order to play in the Lancashire v Yorkshire match at Haslingden on Wednesday, had to work through Tuesday night, play in the cricket match without sleep, and go on munition duty for the Wednesday night also. Was it surprising that his first four deliveries to Woolley were all full tosses, furnishing hits for four? 59 One interesting sidelight to the efforts to arrange war charity cricket matches in 1916 is the story of Richard Flanagan. Throughout the summer, a Captain Flanagan’s XI played matches for charitable purposes. At the start of August, he was described as ‘well known in sporting circles in the West Riding’ and ‘zealous in recruiting’, and it was claimed he had organised a cricket team nearly every week around the West Riding. Over £300 had been raised through the efforts of a man who it was said had also played football for Leicester Fosse and was now to play for Stoke. Press coverage of Flanagan’s efforts was very positive, but at the end of the month there was a completely different slant on his work when it was reported that he had appeared in Halifax Police Court charged with wearing His Majesty’s uniform without authority. During his time at the Halifax Drill Hall, Flanagan had been referred to as ‘Captain’ and