Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

47 Swansea becomes a county ground watching or playing cricket and rugby at the ground overlooking Swansea Bay. With the declaration of war with Germany, conscription and no means of honouring the terms of their lease of St. Helen’s, Swansea Cricket and Football Club surrendered its tenure of the ground to the Swansea Town Corporation. It was therefore under their jurisdiction that several changes took place to the pavilion during the winter of 1946/47, ostensibly to maintain international rugby in Swansea and to increase the amount of terracing where people could sit to watch the matches. The result was that the concrete banking was extended, virtually obscuring the ground floor of the pavilion, whilst the upper floor was enlarged to include a new bar and seating area, whilst on the roof four turret-like pagodas were created with the front two being used by the scorers and journalists. Indeed, there are many tales, some no doubt apocryphal, of this being the location where John Arlott and Welsh poet Dylan Thomas met up and shared a bottle or three of the finest red wine as they watched a series of games in 1948 as Wilf Wooller’s team moved closer and closer to the Championship title. There are no surviving records to show that the pair were present for the three-day match at St. Helen’s starting on 15 September against a South of England XI as the Welsh county staged a festival week of cricket in Swansea and Cardiff to celebrate their first Championship title. But Billy Bancroft was there, proudly sporting a daffodil in his lapel as he manned the player’s gate back up to the pavilion. Billy was hoping that his prodigy Gilbert Parkhouse could showcase his talents in this match against some of the finest players in southern Harry Creber.