Dimming of the Day

September The Observer was still publishing a long list of club fixtures. On 29 September the Manchester Guardian printed the averages for the Manchester Club; many of the Lancashire players had turned out during the season. If Worcestershire was the most obvious financial basket case, some of the other counties were not doing much better. On 22 October the Gloucestershire committee was recommending to a special meeting not to wind up the club, but to keep plugging away. However only one match in the season had attracted enough support to pay its way and it was proposed not to pay the professionals. In October a general meeting of Somerset members had been told that there were substantial financial problems and that if cricket were to be played in 1915 they would have to drop fixtures with Yorkshire and Lancashire away to save money, and that if their debenture holders foreclosed, the club would go out of existence. They had needed a guarantee of £500 to carry on in 1914, but the outbreak of war had destroyed the hope of making money at the Taunton Festival. Lancashire had a meeting in October too and had had a very poor season, having lost over £1300. The position here was secure and there were decent crowds until nearly the end of the season, but it was not good news. To some extent the war saved the county clubs: most of the members continued to pay their subscriptions and there were no substantial expenses. Where Essex were concerned, by the end of September 1914, ‘all available members of the team (amateur and professional) and of the ground staff had already joined the army.’ At first five members of the groundstaff were retained with no alteration in wages, but it was soon obvious that the war would not be over by Christmas and on 14 December the committee ‘agreed that notice be given to A.C.Russell, J.Freeman, and B.Tremlin that the committee did not see their way to employ them after December 31 st .’ Only the head groundsman, E.C.Freeman, and his assistant Walter ‘Bung’ Brewer stayed on, both being beyond military age. Theirs was no sinecure, for the ground was used throughout the war for a variety of events intended to raise morale. In 1919 ‘all county cricketers who had served in the war’ were invited to the club’s annual dinner as guests, and the annual report noted that during the war ‘no professionals were engaged and no one eligible for military service was employed on the ground.’ Giles Phillips writes in On Fenner’s Sward 38 , On 27th October 1914, all members of the University eleven were reported to be absent from Cambridge on military duty, and arrangements for matches were in abeyance. As a result of the lack of matches, or any other activities, subscriptions were reduced from 38 Giles Phillips, on Fenner’s Sward, History Press, 2005 August 1914 99