Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

14 Early cricket in Swansea schoolboys – they switched to the rugby union code, and on 14 November 1874 played their inaugural fixture against the young men of Llandovery College. 8 In their days of just playing cricket at Bryn-y-Mor, the town’s eager sportsmen encountered very few occasions when the ground was too wet for matches, but after diversifying into winter games, the pitch frequently became unusable and as one cricketer of the time ruefully commented: “the upshot of playing football over the cricket pitch was that the wickets only began to get in decent condition about the end of August.” 9 The concerns over the condition of the Bryn-y-Mor wicket were not solely confined to the Swansea area as the MCC dropped their fixture in 1874 with the Swansea Club owing to the poor state of the wicket during the match the previous season. The loss of the prestigious fixture with the MCC was embarrassing for Llewelyn and Livingston but, as you would expect from such influential and astute men of industry and politics, they were already working on a solution. 1. General Evening Post , April 1771. 2. J. Alun Owen, Swansea’s Earliest Open Spaces , Swansea City Council, 1995. 3. The Gloucester Journal , 14 August 1786 4. The Cambrian , 15 June 1831. 5. Swansea CC minute book, July 6th, 1866. 6. The Cambrian , 15 August 1867. 7. Some though enjoyed themselves too much after play at Bryn-y-Mor, with the Swansea CC minute book for April 21st, 1869 noting that “Mr William Bancroft junior had written a letter to apologize for his post-match conduct.” 8. The Cambrian , 20 November 1874; Brecon County Times, 21 November 1874. 9. The Cambrian , 6 September 1878.