Dimming of the Day

Netherton Iron Works at the county ground before a crowd of 1,000. By the next issue on 8 August (a rest week for the Birmingham League because of works holidays) the paper was discussing the formation of sporting battalions in a lengthy column by ‘Argus Junior’ headed ‘War and Cricket’. On the whole it felt that cricket should continue. ‘Skipper’ wrote that, It is difficult to get one’s enthusiasm high enough to write about cricket at such a time as this, but I entirely disagree with the views of some people I have heard lately expressed, that sport should be abolished during the war. This is quite a mistaken idea, as sport acts like a kind of safety-valve, and, in common with the theatre and the music-halls is absolutely necessary to distract the thoughts of the people for a little while from the graver issues at stake. 0n 22 August the Argus still included all the county scores as well as the leagues. The newspaper regularly offered bats for exceptional performances and noted that ‘next Saturday’ (29th) was effectively the end of the local season as cricket would give way to football. Football clubs were advertising for players and fixtures, but had not yet started to play. By 28 August cricket had clearly not stopped in Birmingham. The Evening Despatch listed local fixtures in Divisions I and II of the Birmingham League, eight divisions of the Parks League, games in the Wesleyan League and a long list of other matches. Moving across to Lincolnshire, on 15 August the Grantham Journal reported that the Belvoir Hunt Servants had cancelled their remaining matches; nearly half of the Hunt’s horses had been requisitioned with ‘a consequent reduction of the establishment’. While the Belvoir Hunt was more vulnerable than most, horses were frequently need to travel to matches, and both they and motor vehicles were requisitioned very early on. In Cowbridge, nine members of the club’s 1 st XI , including their professional, who a month before had enjoyed a jolly tour in North Somerset, all enlisted and soon afterwards made their way to Neyland for military training. Would requisitioning horses have created a transport problem for local cricket? At the beginning of the war the Army had 25,000 horses (and only 80 motor vehicles) and requisitioned another 165,000 horses over the first two weeks: the Army was looking for 500,000. And what were the rules? Farming in 1914 surely could not have operated without horses to pull the ploughs and the farm carts – oxen had mostly disappeared and motor vehicles were far and few between. They certainly could not have been spared to move village cricket teams around. It was not quite the end of the season, but there was a peculiar incident on 25 August at Tonbridge. Kent Club & Ground had set the touring Merion Cricket Club (from Philadelphia) to make 153 in 55 minutes. With two balls Recreational Cricket 114