“All I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football”,
Cricket and England
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Cricket and England [1919-1939], Jack Williams, Frank Cass, London 1999. ISBN:0-7146-4418-8
The book consists of 217 pages and eight chapters. This is not a review of the book but of the chapters 7 "Cricket and Christianity" and 4 "Cricket and sportsmanship"
The book documents the significant amount of Christians involved in high level cricket - A third of all Oxford and Cambridge cricket blues between 1860 and 1900 became ordained (Page 143) and that 12 clerics played in county championship between the wars (Page 145).
It also notes the preponderance of church teams in the 1920s. 250 church teams played in leagues in three Lancashire towns - representing about 60% of the league. As always there is the question of the strength of the link to the church (Page 148)
Pages 152-55 discuss Sunday cricket and sabbatarian issues quoting church leaders for and against. This section provides useful material on the subject for any researcher.
Williams refers to "assumptions that cricket represented Christian morality ...[and] the belief that the tradition of sportsmanship within cricket reflected Christian ethics." (Page 144) but also notes that "the church presence within cricket did not discourage cheating and other forms of unsporting behaviour and that the levels of sportsmanship at church clubs were no higher than that those of other clubs." (Page 155) He concludes; "It may have been the case that the supposed Christian character of cricket was more myth than reality but the fact that it was felt necessary to stress the connections between cricket and Christianity indicates how widespread was the approval of Christian teaching". (Page 158)
The chapter on Cricket and Sportsmanship discusses the special role of cricket as a sport with high moral standards.