Cricket Witness No 3 - The Daffodil Blooms

6 with a beaming smile on his face handed me the paper to carry back into the classroom for everyone to use. We each returned to our seats with broad grins on our faces. I can’t remember how I did in that test and, to be perfectly honest, neither Mr. Watkins nor I really cared – our day and whole week had been made by Glamorgan’s victory. Twenty-eight years later that delighted schoolboy in short trousers had become a happy schoolmaster in somewhat longer (and wider!) trousers, as the Glamorgan team of 1997 defeated Somerset at Taunton to clinch the Championship title again. I was now the Head of Geography at Wells Cathedral School, and mid-September saw me back at the “chalk-face” after a great summer working for BBC Radio Wales, acting as their scorer and statistician as they covered the progress of Matthew Maynard and his team. Fortunately, my headmaster was a cricket-lover, as were my colleagues in the Geography Department, who readily agreed to cover my teaching on Saturday, September 20 th , allowing my wife Debra and me to travel that morning from our home in Wells, at the foot of the Mendips, and across the Somerset Levels to the County Ground in Taunton to take part in the broadcast of the third day of the four-day game. “Let’s take that bottle, as I have a funny feeling about today,” I said to Debra, pointing to a bottle of champagne in our kitchen store as we packed the car before the early morning journey to Somerset’s headquarters. At the time, the match looked like going into the fourth and final day but something deep down toldme that Somerset would crumble again in their second innings. I should have taken a punt with the National Lottery that day, because my hunch turned out to be correct as, later that afternoon, Steve James flicked the winning runs down to fine-leg as Glamorgan secured their third Championship title. As I punched the air in delight whilst sat high up in the BBC Radio commentary box, and congratulated the players who joined commentator Edward Bevan for the post-match interviews, I quietly sipped away on the now uncorked champagne. I’m not sure if it was the emotion of the occasion, or the alcohol, but I had a few flashbacks to Ton-yr-Ywen School in 1969, and standing alongside Mr. Watkins the last time I had celebrated a Championship title for Glamorgan. I was not alone in being overjoyed and dewy-eyed, as a hardy of band of Glamorgan supporters were also gathered in and around the Taunton pavilion to share in the excitement and collective joy in what had most definitely become, to borrow Introduction