Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

96 The Prince of Port Eynon closer to Swansea during the mid-1930s to run the shop at Parkmill, he had never travelled to watch county cricket in Swansea. Apart from a few games at Gowerton County School for Boys, he had little experience of formal games and had spent most of his youth playing knockabout games with friends or watching the Port Eynon side with his grandfather, who was their scorer. His rise into professional cricket had followed his National Service firstly with the Navy and then the Fleet Air Arm in the West Midlands with Don’s abilities as a tearaway fast bowler whilst playing for RAF Defford attracting the attention of Worcestershire. A place on the MCC groundstaff for 1948 and a contract with the West Midlands club then followed, but after the intervention of Wilf Wooller and coach George Lavis, Shep went to Lord’s as a Glamorgan cricketer. He subsequently made his Glamorgan debut in 1950 and met with much success as a seam bowler, taking 120 wickets in 1952 before two years later claiming career-best figures of 9/47 against Northamptonshire at the Arms Park. The Cardiff ground became the venue for the first five of his ‘ten-fors’ on Welsh soil, and it was not until 1957, having converted during the previous summer to off-cutters, that Shep took his first ten-wicket haul at Swansea, returning figures of 6/20 and 4/71 in the match against Somerset. In all, he claimed 28 ‘ten-fors’ during his long and illustrious career, with his Swansea returns including 10/107 against Kent in 1958, 10/134 against the 1959 Indians, and 11/54 against Warwickshire in 1960, An image of the St. Helen’s ground during the early 1950s.