The Spectator at war: Maintaining the machinery of sport

The Spectator, 22 August 1914:

WHEN so great a business as war comes upon England, the sports and games of the country fall into their proper places. Cricket has been packed into an obscure corner of the daily newspaper. Golf clubs have expended their activities largely in trenching vacant ground, and in forwarding subscription lists to the Prince of Wales’s Fund. The Scottish Football Union, sending its contribution to the Fund, exhorts its members to prove what they may owe to the discipline and self-control given by the game. But these games—just because they are merely games—are less seriously affected than other country activities. The sports of hunting and shooting are hit by war in a different way, and in turn react upon other activities in other directions to an extent and with ramifications almost impossible to calculate.