Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

32 The Bancrofts target of 365, or more realistically three and three-quarter hours in which to hold on for a morale-boosting draw. In the second innings, Billy opened the batting with Arthur Webb, the former Hampshire batsman, as Norman Riches was having a massage having also jarred his shoulder whilst keeping wicket. In his absence, Billy and Arthur began well against the seamers, but on 16 Billy was bowled by Aubrey Faulkner. The canny purveyor of leg-breaks and googlies then exploited the wearing wicket, claiming 7/67 as the home side were dismissed inside 53 overs to give the South Africans a handsome victory by 230 runs prior to their long journey by the London and North Western Railway’s evening express to Glasgow for their match at Hamilton Crescent against Scotland. They were not the only ones to leave St. Helen’s with a smile on their face, as later that evening, the Glamorgan officials, having totted up all the cash taken at the gates, announced that takings of £230 on the final day had meant that the guarantee and expenses had been covered, and that a small profit had been generated. 4 Although there was delight amongst the Swansea ranks over the financial arrangements of the game, the sizeable defeat had shown that there was still much work to be done on the playing side before Glamorgan could realistically press for first-class status. In the meantime, the Swansea contingent on the Glamorgan committee looked at other ways of capitalising on the interest which the South African match had aroused. With no touring team scheduled for 1913, they successfully lobbied for back-to-back matches in mid-August at St. Helen’s as an experiment was undertaken to stage a Cricket Week at Swansea The Glamorgan officials were fully aware of the success of similar festivals staged by Gloucestershire at Cheltenham College, and by Yorkshire at Scarborough, and with the Mumbles burgeoning reputation as a genteel Edwardian resort, plus the excellent communications from Swansea afforded by the Mumbles Railway, the Club’s officials looked to tap into the tourist trade. To their delight, the matches against Kent 2 nd XI and Wiltshire again drew decent crowds, so for 1914 the Glamorgan committee decided to split the six-match allocation of home matches equally between Cardiff and Swansea, with the St. Helen’s ground staging their quota back- to-back from 6 July to 11 July. It also spoke volumes about the abilities of Creber and the Bancroft family in preparing suitable wickets and net facilities for six successive days of county cricket. The festival of county cricket at Swansea in 1914 began with a two-day friendly which had been arranged with Northamptonshire, the most recent side to be elevated from the Minor County ranks into the County Championship. With Glamorgan’s campaign to follow suit gaining momentum, the contest with the East Midlands side gave the Welsh county another chance of showcasing the rising talent, as well as assessing the attributes of several professionals with first-class experience who were performing well in the local leagues and were looking to qualify for Glamorgan. As far as Eddie