Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

42 Chapter Five Swansea becomes a county ground After several years of acrimony and ill-feeling created by the South Wales Challenge Cup, the cricketers of the region came together in 1888 as the recently knighted JTD Llewelyn convened the meeting at The Angel Hotel in Cardiff with the express purpose of creating a county team which would represent the region and, one day, in the words of JTD “fly at a higher stage” by bringing international cricket to Wales. 1 As President of the Welsh Rugby Union, it had irked JTD that rugby – a team sport which in many places had grown out of cricket teams – had caught the public’s imagination, and after the failure of earlier attempts to form a county team, the squire of Penllergaer was at the forefront of attempts to create a Glamorgan side. JTD had the fulsome support of William Bryant, the secretary of the Swansea club as well as John Price Jones who with the bat had done much, often at Swansea’s expense, to establish Cardiff as the region’s pre-eminent club and as a member of the town’s mercantile bourgeoise he was also eager to see the coal metropolis build on its economic standing by further consolidating its recreational facilities. Other members of the Cardiff club promised support, but the new club was not just “Cardiffshire” as the County’s initial committee included representatives from clubs all around the region whilst the team for the first match, in June 1889 at the Arms Park against Warwickshire was also fairly representative of the area’s amateur talent. All of the home games in year one were staged at the Arms Park with Swansea entering the picture in June 1890, when the county met the MCC in a two-day fixture at St. Helen’s. The Glamorgan side included estate agent Astley Samuel from the home club, but the latter’s selection had its downside as, after being there for the pre-match practice, he had to nip back to work and missed his chance to bat! Also in the Welsh county’s team was Bill Gwynn, the captain of both the town’s cricket and rugby team, and a man who during the early 1890s subsequently mixed his teaching duties with an administrative role with the Welsh Rugby Union, serving as its first paid secretary from 1892 and acting as Wales’ representative on the International Rugby Football Board. Sadly, he suffered a stroke in 1895 with paralysis preventing him from continuing his teaching duties. Early in 1897, his situation deteriorated as he slipped in and out of a coma and with, in the words of The Cambrian newspaper, “his mind being deranged, he was taken to the Bridgend Asylum closer to where his brother and other family members lived” Sadly, he died on 1 April with his funeral in Swansea being attended by