Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

133 ‘The idea a girl cannot play cricket has proved to be rubbish’ playing regular team sports. The diversity of sports available also grew. By the start of the Second World War, the number of physically active women in Britain was higher than ever before, but rapidly declined once hostilities began. The likes of the Margaret Morris Movement for aesthetic dance proved incredibly popular, and the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, founded by Mary Bagot Stack in 1930, had reached a membership of 120,000 just seven years later, and was providing over 2,000 weekly keep-fit classes nationally. 24 Dance was probably the most popular form of working-class leisure (surpassing even the cinema) by 1939, as men and women packed halls in almost every town and city in Britain, eager to spend their few extra shillings from a long week in the factory or office. 25 Thrown into this fertile situation was the 1937 Physical Training and Recreation Act, which allocated almost £2.5 million – a substantial amount that was raised by an additional £3 million one year later – to expand national sporting provision and coaching. Whereas the left had favoured a national healthcare programme, which would not be realised until after 1948, Neville Chamberlain chose the cheaper option rooted in the public- school tradition of physical training through sport and recreation. A National Fitness propaganda campaign was initiated, specifically targeted at the working class. As organisations could bid for funding, the governing bodies for women’s sport moved quickly to secure this opportunity. 26 In September 1937, the Women’s Team Games Board was formed by the WCA, All-England Women’s Hockey Association, All-England Netball Association, and Ladies’ Lacrosse Association. Their intention was to establish a mutually-supportive organisation to boost the numbers of poorer girls playing, and the Board set about touring the country to form new clubs and raise awareness. By working alongside groups such as the Girl Guides and the Women’s Institute they could tap into a wider network women and girls already active in their community. After receiving £500 from the National Fitness Council in 1937 for their activities, most of which was paid directly to Marjorie Pollard as the national organiser, the Board’s funding was raised to £700 in 1938 to finance a permanent office in London, and an additional £500 was granted in March 1938 to produce a National Fitness propaganda film. Women’s team sports, it was argued, would improve the national health of ‘the working girl’ living in ‘crowded towns and cities’, and Pollard toured the length of England specifically targeting girls in deprived regions where few, if any, sports were played. It was Pollard’s intention ‘to make games a possibility for women of all classes’, as they recognised the boom in participation still excluded the less affluent. 27 After decades of struggling to make ends meet, the funding these bodies now secured finally granted them the opportunity to reach girls in deprived neighbourhoods, prevented from playing by a combination of poverty and a lack of opportunities. But the money, as Pollard rightly noted, ‘will produce nothing on its own.’ It was left to the committed and industrious women of these organisations, not least Pollard herself, to implement the aims of the National Fitness Campaign which they had