The intensity and rapture are irrecoverable. There is nothing to compare with the elation that follows a victory over a stronger side. But in the long run I find cricket more enjoyable to-day than I did six years ago. It is less complicated. One takes a day off from one's work and spends it in agreeable company. One can field out all day and never take a wicket, miss a couple of catches, and then crown everything by making a duck, and yet thoroughly enjoy oneself. At school that would have been a rotten day, and one would have spent the evening in deep despondency. Yet everything is in favour of one enjoying one's game at school. It is so simple. One strolls down after lunch in a leisurely fashion to the field. One changes one's boots in the pavilion. A hot bath is waiting for one afterwards. But, in order to play football after one has left, one has to rush off to catch impossible trains from impossible stations. One has no time for lunch. The train always seems to start at 1.18. There is as likely as not a long walk from the station. One changes in a converted army hut; one is more than a little tired before the game starts. There are no proper baths afterwards, and one has to hurry, or one will miss the only train to town: for it is amazing the number of football fields which are on loop lines with trains at hourly intervals. And yet, personally, I enjoy my football now a great deal more than I ever did at school.
It would not be just, however, to lay the blame of this professionalism to the account of the sporting press. Journalists are rarely responsible for anything. They do not lead public opinion. They follow it or, if they are clever, they anticipate it. Had not the worship of athleticism been already firmly established in the schools themselves it would never have occurred to them to run it as a stunt. The journalist spends most of his time searching for a town of blind men over which he, with his one eye, may rule. And the journalist discovered that the Public School had enthroned an unofficial king who had not received his due of public recognition. The journalist decided to officialise his position. To this king was paid extensive homage; and, as there is no more pleasant reading for ladies-in-waiting than court gossip, he commenced a column of court news. But he did not set up the court, or crown the king. He is only a herald. And we must regard these tiresome articles as a proof, but not a cause of this peculiar ritual. The trumpeting of the herald adds certainly to the glamour of the court, but his absence would not start a revolution. If not another article appeared on public school sport, the cult of athleticism would still continue; it would continue because as things are at present there is no other focus for the enthusiasm and partisanship of a boy of seventeen. There is really little else about which a schoolboy could reasonably become excited.