A Game Sustained

85 Shocks to the system: 1916 competitive cricket to attract spectators. A special appeal to members to pay their subscriptions was also very disappointing. Cricket fields at Roundhay were ploughed up so that potatoes could be grown, although not everyone thought this was going far enough, with a letter to the Yorkshire Post complaining about the failure to take over more land, including cricket grounds, for food production. In Halifax, the committee of the Cricket and Football Club decided to offer for sale the cricket ground at Thrumm Hall to help clear the heavy mortgage debt the club had built up. In December 1916, a gentleman offered to take over the whole site and clear the mortage. Scarborough’s debt also grew to £395 and the club lost its groundsman who, despite being nearly 41, was called up for military service. However, cricket was played in the town thanks to the local military presence and ‘Old Ebor’ commented that one match involving a Lord Londesborough’s XI ended ‘in Festival style’, with veterans R.W.Frank (long-time Yorkshire Second XI captain) and David Hunter (the county wicketkeeper for over 20 years) making 79 and 52 respectively. If attention was paid to keeping the game going at local level, others continued to think ahead to after the war. Unsurprisingly, some commentators in the press were quite negative about the prospects ahead. In a series of articles in the Star Green’un entitled ‘Sport after the War’, one writer commented that it was widely felt that the people of Great Britain would have to revise their views on many things after the war. In particular, he wrote that the country would need to be more serious about industrial policy and take fewer holidays. He added that in view of the demands of higher taxation and the pressure brought about by the waste arising from the war, it would be unlikely that ‘we shall again witness the spectacle of thousands of people assembling for three days together watching county cricket.’ The London correspondent of the Hull Daily Mail also wrote that ‘The prevalent impression amongst the experts is that [the war] will strike a blow at professionalism both in cricket and in football, and there is general expectation that when cricket is resumed the duration of county matches will have to be