Lives in Cricket No 22 - Jack Mercer

29 not, however, a good day for cricket in Glamorgan as the county side – in their opening Championship match of the season – were dismissed for just 68 at Old Trafford, before the Lancashire batsmen raced to 254 for four by the close of play. This was the first of a series of heavy losses sustained by the Welsh county, including an innings defeat against Sussex at Swansea, which Jack attended to catch up with his former colleagues. No doubt several of his former team-mates wondered what on earth he was doing trying to qualify for a motley side whose future as a first-class side was already being questioned. By the end of May, Glamorgan had lost all their six games – four by an innings – and ‘Nomad’ of the Western Mail wrote: I have heard so many adverse comments about the Club that I am wondering how much they have cost the county in view of public support. … A young cricketers’ nursery is essential and all the young professionals attached to the club should be brought to Cardiff where it would be possible to establish a nursery. The ambitions of men like Abel, Mercer and Sullivan are being crippled in club cricket – let them during the week have the opportunity of practising on decent wickets and in their own class. 25 The well-respected journalist was clearly in the know about discussions in the committee room because the Glamorgan officials soon afterwards announced they would be advertising for a coach. Many applications were duly received. In August a shortlist was drawn up, comprising Fred Bowley of Worcestershire, Surrey’s Tom Hayward, and John Tunnicliffe, the former Yorkshire cricketer who had been coaching at Clifton College since before the Great War. After a series of interviews, Bowley was offered the post, at the sum of £400 per annum. His appointment was announced at the end of July – coincidentally on the same day that the Welsh county recorded a morale-boosting victory over Somerset at Weston-super-Mare. Shortly afterwards, Glamorgan’s officials also organised a series of Club and Ground games, and it was in one of these that Jack made his Glamorgan debut when, on 1 June 1922, he and the trio of qualifying professionals travelled to Treorchy for a one-day contest against the Rhondda League side. It proved something of a mismatch as Glamorgan cheaply dismissed the local side, who fielded fifteen men, but at least it showcased the bowling talent that the first eleven so badly needed as Jack took four for 22, and at the other end Frank Ryan claimed seven for 41. The pair, together with the other qualifying professionals, were also included in the Glamorgan side which over the August Bank Holiday played a team, raised and led by H.D.G.Leveson Gower, comprising past and present students from Oxford and Cambridge Universities. 26 Jack took four wickets when the varsity men batted first and a flavour of his A move to South Wales 25 Western Mail , 26 May 1922. 26 It might be thought odd that on a Bank Holiday weekend Glamorgan were without more substantial opponents. All the other sixteen counties had fixtures of long standing against one another, including several local derbies, so newcomers Glamorgan were the wallflowers without a partner. The match is treated as first-class.