Cricket clubs, like just about all businesses, face a weekly battle to stay afloat.

Sadly the days when thousands of paying spectators crammed into the likes of Seedhill, West End, Bacup Road and the rest are in the past.

But league cricket is battling away, the clubs graft to keep going with fund-raisers through the winter and, hopefully, getting the full use out of their facilities in the summer.

Sunday was a day when most bars would have made a killing. Sunday was also a day when I reckon some local cricket clubs would have taken a hit.

There was a Lancashire League programme on Sunday, the same day that England were booted out of the World Cup by Germany.

Crowds around the grounds were generally down – and those £4’s add up – and the games were played out in front of a surreal atmosphere with cheers and jeers coming from the bar and an eerie silence from empty benches.

The League could and should have played the programme on Saturday, an open date, to give everyone the chance of watching the football.

There surely cannot be too much difficulty involved because clubs are so flexible in any case.

Okay, England’s display was bordering on the shameful.

But the cricket fraternity would have loved to have seen the football team sink...because, as ridiculous as it may seem, England could have won.

It was a one-off, a huge occasion. The World Cup is once every four years.

Cricket players and fans would have liked the chance to watch it – and then drown their sorrows.

And with the mood of misery, the amount of ale supped could have kept some clubs afloat until 2014.