Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

134 recognised and championed since before they could even sit in Parliament. ‘The root of the whole scheme,’ Pollard reasoned, was team games. With her unshakable belief in the superiority of team over individual sports, or other physical exercise, she simply reminded the sports industry that ‘everyone has an instinct for play, but no one has an instinct for doing physical training.’ 28 Yet the funding the Women’s Team Games Board received, although undoubtedly welcome and appreciated, held greater significance as a symbol than in its financial impact. By indirectly funding Marjorie Pollard, and directly funding the Board, the government had for the first time acknowledged and explicitly supported cricket as a game suitable and desirable for girls. The benefits of this endorsement were not simply limited, however, to the fitness of the nation. Instead, the Board was identified as a vehicle for ‘obtaining the recognition of women’ from a sceptical public and ensuring they would no longer remain mere spectators in one of the nation’s defining cultural landscapes. The State had therefore committed, albeit in piecemeal fashion, to ending the social stigma attached to playing vigorous and competitive sports, and rubber-stamped their civic virtue. 29 Pollard estimated that 85% of girls leaving secondary schools wished to continue some form of physical recreation, and as such set about helping them achieve this through public speeches, writing, interviews, conferences and propaganda films. She somewhat supported the view a leisure ‘problem’ existed in Britain when she lamented the difficulties that faced her. Young women’s access to cheap ‘uneducated’ entertainment, in the form of novels and the cinema, made selling difficult, expensive and time-consuming games like cricket that much harder. Yet her analysis of the troubles facing her ignored the fundamental causes behind this dearth of working-class physical recreation, namely unemployment, low wages, overcrowding and poverty. Nonetheless, her efforts pleased the Board of Education. Just as her successes started to be rewarded, and their funding looked to increase in the 1940s, it was swiftly terminated the morning after the declaration of war. Their vision of allowing every girl to pursue her sporting interests was in ruins. 30 Nonetheless, the National Fitness Council’s endorsement of cricket, lacrosse, hockey and netball officially ordained these team games as legitimate pastimes for women, and in doing so acknowledged their capacity to cultivate desirable qualities in citizens. When Neville Chamberlain had outlined the government’s plans to improve ‘the national physique’, he had praised exercise as the method young people could ‘learn to control their muscles and learn to control their minds… we shall make them better citizens as well as better athletes.’ 31 The WCA’s ‘rhetoric of citizenship’, which had painted cricket as valuable to both individuals and the community, had positioned the game perfectly within broader public discussions. The sport promised to endow women and girls with qualities essential to active participation in the democratic life of the nation, and simultaneously assist them in their civic duty to maintain a healthy, strong body. This was just how enlightened employers had also justified their ‘The idea a girl cannot play cricket has proved to be rubbish’