Cricket Witness No 4 - Women at the WIcket

145 Conclusion - War Again, and its Aftermath become sovereign over the stumps. The post-war development of the game was particularly disappointing as it was a golden opportunity. In 1956, the editor of Women’s Cricket lamented how the disruption of war after a decade of peace still prevented the WCA from reaching their pre-war heights. Although this was probably incorrect, as more clubs were affiliated in 1956 than 1939, the blame rested largely outside their control. Competition for resources was a major obstruction, but another hurdle was engagement with schools: the ‘lifeblood’ of the Association. 20 This was certainly not through lack of effort. The WCA restarted coaching schemes in schools, engaged directly with teachers and school-leavers, and played their instructional film in classrooms throughout the country. As schools funding was increased and the leaving age raised following the Education Act of 1944, local authority investment in recreational facilities also experienced a significant boost. The WCA did not capitalise on these changes: the organisation failed to attract a single secondary modern between 1950 and 1960, just two comprehensives, and only a marginal increase in grammar schools. Meanwhile, the All-England Women’s Hockey Association affiliated over ten times the number of WCA schools by 1950, and netball saw similar increases. Although maintenance and equipment costs were undoubtedly factors, it was the attitude of teachers and local authorities that truly prevented girls playing the game. In coeducational schools, an increasingly common feature of post-war education, cricket was usually played by boys but girls were casually overlooked. Many teachers believed the sport was unsuitable and unladylike, or girls were simply not interested in playing, and considered other games more socially valuable for them. 21 Once again cricketers had to prove the sport’s worth to a sceptical public. The respectable, middle-class image the WCA had tirelessly worked to establish for the game had to be rebuilt from scratch. The Association allowed no time in doing this, and the first edition of Women’s Cricket following the war characteristically called for players to understand the game was a ‘a deep rooted British occupation’ that ‘behoves us all to play and to organise the playing of it in strict order and decorum.’ Outfits and attitudes were placed under the microscope from inside and outside the organisation, but their efforts went largely unrewarded. While the WCA had secured government funding before the war, albeit in conjunction with netball, hockey and lacrosse, no such support readily came after the conflict. The newly-formed Ministry of Education awarded the Women’s Hockey Association £410 in the early 1950s, and were generous with mixed-sex organisations too, but the WCA’s application to finance part- time school coaches was roundly rejected. 22 Women were not about to invade every cricket pitch in Britain, to the relief of many, and these reassurances also appeared in literature on the sport. Women remained absent in popular post-war cricket fiction (except for Charles Hatton’s 1955 novel Maiden Over ), to the extent that William Godfrey widowed his protagonist in Malleson at Melbourne (1956) rather