Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

141 A very special place The place would come alive, fuelled by a heady mix of Celtic passion, hwyl and a heartfelt desire from the thousands of locals for the home- bred cricketers to do well against the Test players from abroad.” 2 These are thoughts echoed again by Alan Jones who, from an early age had been taken by his father and brothers to watch these matches at the Swansea ground: “All my boyhood dreams had been built at St. Helen’s… As a teenager, I used to await the arrival of a touring side to St. Helen’s with baited breath. This was the chance to see those heroes I had only heard about on radio commentaries.” 3 Richard Bentley, the Swansea-born teacher and author, also fell in love with St. Helen’s after visiting the ground for the first time over the August Bank Holiday to watch the game with the 1955 South Africans. At the time, Richard was football-mad with his heroes up the road at the Vetch Field during the 1950s, so as he admits the names of the players on either side meant nothing to him. “But in a way, what I do remember is even more precious. I remember the excitement. The sense of occasion. The chatter of the crowd. The applause – in turn passionate and polite. I remember sitting cross-legged and crouched on the grass in front of the double-faced scoreboard. The smell of the new-mown outfield. The run and tickle of grass on my short-trousered knees. I remember the mix of colours, and especially the bright red ball on the green-ness of the field (so different to the dreary greys of the small A view of the action from Swansea in 1949 when Glamorgan played New Zealand.