Lives in Cricket No 1 - Allan Watkins

stocky, he was the ideal build for the position and such was his talent that, during the first winter of the war, when he had been too young to enlist, Allan had attracted the attention of Pontypool, one of the major clubs in South Wales. There he played in a match against the wartime All Blacks, and he enjoyed a brief association with Bleddyn Williams, later to become a legend of Welsh rugby. Allan recalls an early match report that had sung the praises of the young Williams: “Although it said the Pontypool pack was well beaten, it praised Bleddyn Williams for scoring three times. What I want to know is if we were behind a beaten pack and I was the scrum half, how the hell did I get the ball out to Bleddyn Williams to score three times without getting a mention?” At Granby Barracks, Allan found that there were no opportunities for rugby, so he began to play soccer more seriously. His natural talent for any sport – he could turn his hand to badminton, table tennis, boxing or shooting – meant that he quickly adapted to the round ball code, and he was a prominent member of a Granby Barracks team powerful enough to take on all comers. A notable highlight came when the barracks side beat Plymouth Argyle, a Second Division League side, in the final of the South West Cup. Allan, left-handed in all he did on the cricket field, favoured his left foot on the football pitch and played at left half. He remembers it as one of the hardest-working positions on the field. “That heavy ball I can remember. Being a wing-half you took your head to all the goal kicks. The opposition kicking the ball always landed it in the wing half’s position.” Plymouth Argyle’s scouts had already been casting an eye over the talent in the naval sides. They had spotted Tommy Briggs, who would go on to play for England B as a centre forward and set a scoring record with seven goals in a match for Blackburn Rovers against Bristol Rovers, and the victory of the Granby Barracks team emphasised the quality of some of the other players. Allan was one to whom the club made approaches and, as soon as he was demobbed in 1945, he signed professional terms. By this time Allan was a married man and a father. When war came, Molly had been able to join up before Allan. She had volunteered for the WAAF, and Allan remembers her returning to Usk. He was in Twyn Square, the main gathering place for youngsters in the town, when Molly arrived with a group of girls. One of them came up to him. “‘Molly wants to talk to you.’ I said, ‘Well I don’t want to An Easy War For Stoker Watkins 22