Lives in Cricket No 11 - CP Lewis

have commented how the Challenge Cup ‘became the pivot around which early Welsh rugby revolved. It played a formative role in the emergence of Welsh Rugby and in its growth as a spectator sport. It generated intense local rivalry and brought excitement and spectacle into the routine lives of congested, industrial towns. It also raised the standard of football played.’ The success though came at a cost, with many bitter disputes between the participating clubs and allegations of ‘illegal’ players being hired, as clubs flouted the ‘twelve-mile’ rule over eligibility. The latter did not affect Llandovery College, but C.P. believed strongly that player hiring was wrong, and on several occasions, he contacted the Press to express his anger. The College’s games however were not immune from other problems and sometimes they were affected by the overly partisan behaviour of the crowds. The match report of their contest at Carmarthen in 1881 said, of the home side’s supporters, that ‘the conduct of the mob was disgraceful.’ There were often rows about alleged bias in the refereeing, as in Llandovery College’s match in November 1878 against St. David’s College, Lampeter. It proved to be quite a heated affair with disputes over the legality of some of the tries and conversions kicked by the Lampeter side, and after one protracted exchange in the second half, C.P. led the Llandovery side off the pitch, causing the game to finish early. Nothing though was mentioned about these disputes, or the abrupt end, in the match report in the Western Mail, submitted by presumably someone with strong Lampeter connections. This omission infuriated C.P. who duly wrote to the newspaper, and had his letter published a few days later, with his comments putting the record straight: ‘Nothing is said about the try and goal which Llandovery claim, but which Lampeter dispute, and as the latter would not kick off from half-way after the goal, the game was brought to an abrupt conclusion quarter of an hour before the final whistle.’ Such disputes and arguments were the undoing of the South Wales Football Challenge Cup, but in part, some of the friction and regional rivalries were the South Wales Football Club’s own making. In September 1880, for instance, they decided to divide the contesting clubs into eastern and western districts, thereby ensuring a potentially fractious East v West final each year. As far as the Llandovery students were concerned, the change brought about a contest with the Neath club, which had been formed in The Lone Full Back 78