A Game Sustained

93 Running out of steam: 1917 to briefly before - suggest that the game was still functioning quite well in the Bradford area. At Saltaire, Booth enthused about the crowd, which he said: approached my ideal...It contained 600 ladies and 272 boys. It throbbed with enthusiasm. It appreciated good cricket of friend or foe alike. It was intensely human in its admiration of a great feat as in its sympathy with misfortune. It was a crowd of men and women, who, having loyally done a week’s work were unconsciously claiming their right to a half-day’s recreation and enjoyment...All would go away with a renewed vitality to battle for another period. 63 At Keighley, Booth commented that he was quite unprepared for the size of the crowd. In such circumstances, big collections were taken for individual players, leading again to further complaints that they were inappropriate in wartime. It was not hard to see why some were unhappy; Fred Root later claimed to have seen one ‘unknown amateur, with no pretensions to skill at the game’ receive over £50 in coppers which had to be taken to the bank in a wheelbarrow. 64 In other places the game also seemed as popular as ever. In Halifax, the inclusion of smaller clubs in section A of the Council had considerably improved the cricket in the district, with much enthusiasm created by their local rivalry. At the same time, elsewhere the loss of young men to the war became ever more visible in the ages of some who turned out in local cricket. ‘Old Ebor’ noted that the Leeds club side that beat Morley in the Yorkshire Cricket Council had a total age of 453, even though it included a boy of 18. There were two men in their 50s playing, as well as Lees Whitehead, the old Yorkshire cricketer, who was 47. Despite this, followers of the game were clearly well provided for on a Saturday afternoon in many of the major urban areas, although in Sheffield it was suggested that the Hallamshire League games were seen by many as ‘too modest a kind of cricket fare’. There were other complaints at the time, ‘Old Ebor’ even reporting comments at the end of July 1917 from one supporter he had spoken to, who wished ‘the County