Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

126 Yorkshire Post’s reviewer vindicated the WCA’s efforts when he declared Pollard ‘gave me an increased respect for women’s cricket.’ Other interwar publications included Notes on the Laws of Cricket (1932), which sold over 1,000 copies in its first year, and a pamphlet, Coaching Cricket (1933). Newly affiliated bodies were issued a copy of both publications. 6 By the late 1930s, the game was being regularly reported with serious appreciation by various media outlets. The Cricketer’s coverage of women’s cricket, although often anecdotal or novel, saw a sustained rise in reportage, resulting in a weekly article from April 1939. Similarly the ‘bible of cricket’, Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, featured the women’s game for the first time in 1938, and again in 1939. Magazines outside sporting circles also regularly included articles on the sport. Girl’s Own Paper printed a recurring feature entitled ‘Marjorie Pollard Speaks on Sport’ from 1939, where Pollard promoted girls’ team games through information, encouragement and instruction, with cricket featuring heavily. 7 Instructional literature aimed at children such as Herbert Herman’s How’s That? (1937) now spoke to ‘youngsters’ and had illustrations of girls as well as boys, a small but welcome shift in focus. Meanwhile, Country Life ran a regular ‘Women in Sport’ column in 1938 which featured, among others, Betty Archdale, Frances Heron-Maxwell, Molly Hide and Marjorie Pollard. In the North, the English Women’s Cricket Federation received positive coverage from many local newspapers, with the game losing its sense of novelty and becoming, for a time, a serious news item. 8 By 1935 Pollard was appearing on national radio speaking about the evolution and state of the game, and in 1937 provided running commentary of the Australia tour to national and regional radio stations. The English Federation also gained a slot on Northern Radio, with the prominent player Ruby Humphries speaking on the sport’s development. The use of mass media continued in 1938 when two separate films were shot, one by the BBC and played on the West of England television network, and another by the WCA, but this did not tour England until after the war. By 1939 newspapers with readerships well over a million, such as News Chronicle owned by the Cadbury family, were reporting on women’s cricket every week. 9 The tangible shift in the volume and tone of reports on the game after 1937 was no coincidence. The sport was able to successfully capitalise on the near-universal praise it received following the 1937 ‘Ashes’ tour of England by Australia. The WCA identified very early that publicity through public matches was the best way of securing growth and ‘proper recognition’. Playing with a high degree of skill, but with ‘ladylike’ dignity and decorum, could challenge critics that had maintained for decades the sport was unsuitable for women. Praise was particularly reserved for the 1937 Oval Test match, as roughly 7,000 spectators paid to witness England’s Betty Snowball score 99 and Joan Davis take 5-31 as the series was drawn. Schoolgirls battled to secure the autographs of their favourite players as the leading critics of the day watched on with fascination and appreciation. Spectators and journalists praised the cricketers’ ‘amazing ‘The idea a girl cannot play cricket has proved to be rubbish’