Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

the county as coach and secretary into the 1980s. The young skipper liked the look of the 11-year-old Albert Watkins and ensured that he was picked for the team. “That’s where my friendship with Philly started,” says Allan, speaking of the man who would become his closest pal in the Glamorgan side and with whom he would still have regular telephone conversations until Clift’s death in the early summer of 2005. There was virtually no cricket played at Usk Grammar School, but Allan looks back on another slice of luck in his quest to learn the game. Managing the Usk colts was a Mr Rickards, an influential member of the club, who lived at Usk Priory, the dominant private house in the centre of the town and one of only four former nunneries in Wales. This imposing home had three driveways, and Allan remembers how Rickards arranged for concrete to be laid over one of them to construct an artificial cricket pitch, on which he welcomed the colts for practice three times a week. Little could Rickards have guessed, as his charges made grateful use of his facilities, that he was helping a boy who would become the first Glamorgan player to hit a Test match century. 12 Early Days at Usk Usk Colts in 1934. Allan is seated to the right of skipper Phil Clift.