Cricket Witness No 3 - The Daffodil Blooms

24 A new dawn? but the presence of the fresh-faced youngster took some of the officials at away grounds quite by surprise and, in a match at The Oval, the Surrey stewards could not quite believe that someone so young was actually playing. Initially, they refused to allow the teenager into the pavilion, and it was only after Johnnie had been summoned from the away changing rooms that Cyril was granted admittance. There may have been red faces that day within Surrey’s ranks but, as far as Glamorgan’s officials were concerned, there were broad smiles about the emergence of Cyril and Maurice, allowing the committee to believe that good times might just be around the corner. There had also been more success in the hiring of professionals from English counties compared with previous years as evidenced by the success of Mercer and Ryan in the debut match of Maurice Turnbull. With scant resources still available, the Club’s officials had continued to offer modest terms in the hope – more by luck than judgement – that a diamond might be discovered. For a while, it looked like this might happen with Norman Kilner, the 28-year old batsman from Yorkshire, who had failed to secure a regular place in his native county’s line-up. Having seen the success of fellow Tyke Eddie Bates in the Glamorgan side, he began negotiations with officials from Glamorgan and was offered terms. But the Wombwell-born batsman also had talks with Warwickshire and, with the Midlands county offering him more lucrative terms, the Edgbaston-based club duly won his signature, with Kilner going on to score 16,075 runs and 23 first-class hundreds for the Cyril Walters, pictured in 1927.