Dimming of the Day

Chapter Ten Will There Be Cricket in 1915? The question now passed to other sports and it becomes clear that (for whatever reason) there was a split along class lines. Professional football – the Football League, the Southern League, the Birmingham Combination – continued for 1914/15. The amateur leagues (Isthmian and Athenian) did not. All the rugby union clubs in the South and Midlands stopped, but for 1914/15 Rugby Union continued in Wales, where it was a working-class game: the Northern Union (Rugby League) continued. Rugby Union in England in 1914 was very much a gentleman’s game. The insistence on the most punctilious amateurism and the fact that only public schools played the game ensured that this was the officer class, and many of them would have been recalled to their regiments right at the start – which would have taken organisers as well as players. It was agreed in February 1915 that the Lancashire League would go on as usual though with reduced wages for professionals and allowances would be discontinued for amateurs. Mr Barlow (Secretary) said, ‘if it had not been for that madman the Kaiser, he would have to report the most successful season ever experienced.’ There would be no junior 2 nd XI championship in 1915, though. Most famously, the Bradford League played on right through the war, attracting many professionals whose wartime occupations allowed. The full story is told in Cricket’s Wartime Sanctuary by Tony Barker 42 . Other matches for 1915 on CricketArchive are all school games with a couple of military games at the start of the year. According to the Yorkshire Evening Post in April 2015, The Yorkshire Cricket Council and most of the important cricket leagues of Yorkshire have entirely suspended competitive sport for the coming season, arrangements are being made in many quarters for carrying on the game purely as a recreation and relaxation from the serious business of the day. it then gives a long list of Yorkshire Council and Leeds League clubs who have arranged friendly fixtures. In May 1915 Kent had arranged friendlies with Surrey and Yorkshire ‘if the war is over soon enough’. It wasn’t. Minor leagues in Yorkshire continued – the Yorkshire Evening Post covers 42 Tony Barker, Cricket’s Wartime Sanctuary , ACS Publications, 2009 116