Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

19 The creation of St. Helen’s Two years later, St. Helen’s staged a two-day game between the South Wales Club and the Australian tourists. Securing the game was a major coup for Llewelyn, who that year was High Sheriff of Glamorgan and his friends as it was the first time that a major match had been staged between the Welsh regional side and an international touring team. As a Director of the Great Western Railway, he also used his many contacts with the local railway companies to organise the running of additional trains with reduced fares to Swansea, whilst many shop owners agreed to half-day closing so that as many people as possible could get to St. Helen’s and see in the flesh the tourists who the winter before had taken part in the inaugural Test Match. 3 Originally it was agreed that the tourists would travel to Swansea to play an eleven-a-side match on 8th and 9th July but after arriving in England, the tourists agreed to play another fixture at Twickenham on those days. The fixture at Swansea was therefore put back a couple of days, and after their outstanding form shown in the early part of their tour, the conditions of the match were further amended so that the South Wales side, assembled and captained by Llewelyn, could field eighteen players against the men from the Antipodes. The tourists included Fred Spofforth, nicknamed ‘The Demon’, as the first man to exploit modern-style overarm bowling to its fullest extent. The bounce and movement he extracted made him too much for even the best batsmen in the UK, let alone the club-standard players he bowled against on much of the tour. “This Spofforth throws his arms about like a windmill,” said one local observer.” He deceived the batsmen by delivering many moderate balls with all the appearance of a very fast one.” 4 They were also a hairy crowd, the 1878 Australians, at a time when full beards and elaborate moustaches were fashionable. Indeed, they looked more like bushrangers than cricketers, none more so than their captain A newspaper notice promoting the match at Swansea against the 1878 Australians.