Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

115 their contribution to the community in peacetime. Of course, women played a significant role in public life prior to the First World War, but wartime activities embodied and assisted a reshaping of citizenship that emerged post-war as more public, visible, and politically sanctioned. Cricket was both a symbol and a reality of this change. Home Front volunteers that organised cricket matches were praised for their ‘loyalty and unselfish work’. The sport was a way women expressed their self- sacrificing community voluntarism, with matches and competitions being played with or between women to raise money for local charities, usually hospitals. 15 The continued links with wartime work legitimised an activity that went beyond the mere novelty of matches played against men batting with broomsticks, which were common in the late-19th century. The women’s section of the British Legion in Folkestone held a ‘cricket week’ in September 1926 to raise money for local welfare and nursing services, while the English Federation played several charity games every summer, which were generally well attended. Over £72 was raised at a game between Bradford and Leeds at Headingley in 1931, which was donated to hospitals in the two cities. But these are just some examples of what became a popular summer fundraiser. Almost every women’s cricket team in West Yorkshire was associated with a church, and funds raised were donated to local causes. 16 This model of public generosity merged the ideals of voluntary citizenship with traditional roles associated with women: in nursing, infant welfare and other forms of community care. Like other women’s organisations that aimed to educate members on their rights and responsibilities, the WCA, county associations and most private- members teams operated democratically through annual elections on a one-vote-per-member basis. Pollard praised the WCA as both ‘democratic to a degree’ and meritocratic, stating ‘everyone’, whether ‘doctors, artists, factory workers, teachers, clerks, architects, [or] waitresses’ had ‘the same chance of playing for their district or their county.’ Cricket, she argued, was ‘a great leveller’ whereby all players were equals on the field of play. 17 Difficult issues such as amateurism were discussed freely and openly, and she was anxious dress codes may ‘sound dictatorial’. The same praise had been heaped on the All-England Women’s Hockey Association, which Pollard called ‘as democratic an organisation as ever came out of a western state’. 18 Workplace sides also claimed to have elected officers annually, while school headmistresses encouraged girls to run their own self-governing, democratic cricket teams. The English Federation too held annual elections for officers and declared all decisions made were by majority vote. The Federation’s organisational structure, so one of its members claimed, was far more democratic and transparent than the WCA’s. 19 Other women’s organisations that adopted a rhetoric of voluntary citizenship, like the Women’s Institute, also had cricket teams, but rarely affiliated to the WCA as they played among themselves. Sport was often viewed as a way of uniting like-minded women from all More than a Game: Citizenship and Cricket