Cricket Witness No 3 - The Daffodil Blooms

89 New faces and 2 nd XI who, during the course of the summer, met a number of club sides as well as the second strings from Worcestershire and Warwickshire. His work was greatly appreciated and Tom Williams, the former Monmouthshire captain and member of Glamorgan’s selection committee paid the following tribute to his efforts in the South Wales Cricketers Magazine : “George Lavis is doing very valuable work and is scouring South Wales for promising players, lecturing and coaching, and this is sure to bear fruit in the years to come... There are hundreds of good potential cricketers in South Wales who only need the coaching and direction of competent tutors to develop into first- class players.” 2 Jim Pleass was one of this new generation of home-grown cricketers, and one of those who greatly benefited from the enhanced coaching system and facilities. Born in Cardiff, Jim had been amongst the throng of schoolboys who attended games at the Arms Park from the mid-1930s and in 1947 he achieved his boyhood ambition of playing cricket for Glamorgan. He was also a very talented footballer, and had trials with Cardiff City before the War intervened and interrupted his simple, yet very rewarding, Jim Pleass practices his forward defensive strokes at Cardiff in 1947.