“It is clear that to hold their own in first-class company, Glamorgan must find young talent and not depend so much on middle-aged men.” This was the summative view of Wisden’s correspondent at the end of the Welsh county’s first summer of Championship cricket. Over the winter months, Norman Riches confirmed his intention to stand down as captain whilst a series of colts matches were organised in the hope of finding new gems.
“Surely things cannot be as bad as last summer,” said one official to a journalist at the start of the season. But things went from bad to worse with the first of just two victories eventually coming on August 1st when Harry Creber fully exploited a worn wicket at Weston-super-Mare to spin the Welsh county to their inaugural Championship victory outside Wales. Eighteen matches were lost, including twelve in succession at the start of a truly dreadful season. As defeat followed defeat, and the debts steadily rose, the Club’s selectors opted against hiring professionals and dipped into the ranks of amateur cricketers hoping, just like a prospector in the Klondyke, their efforts would strike gold.
One of their choices was John Charles Pengelly Madden-Gaskell, a debonair batsman who had been born in Monmouthshire, educated at Haileybury and, as a nine year-old had overcome the shock of finding that his father, who was a priest in Southwark, had eloped to the USA with a twenty year-old girl. Now living with his step-father in Penarth, the bespectacled amateur was known in club circles as a cavalier batsman, who loved to attack either fast or slow bowling. This reputation led to his selection for the away match against Yorkshire, in which he made 7 and 32 in what proved to be his only game for the Welsh county. John later moved to Somerset, for whom he played in nine games before joining the Army and, as Major Madden-Gaskell, being awarded the MBE in 1945 having been part of the quarter-masters team who oversaw the provisioning of food and equipment for Operation Overlord.
Other choices failed to cut the mustard, not surprising that several had relatively modest records in club cricket. Some were unknown to the senior players in the team, and as one of the regulars later recalled, “A great big fellow was in the team one day and Johnnie Clay, being a gentleman, didn’t like to ask him whether he was a batsman or a bowler. So Johnnie asked me and I didn’t know either. ‘Well,’ said Johnnie, ‘we’ll put him in the slips. Even if he can’t catch, he’s a big chap – something might hit him!”
In all, a total of 46 players appeared for the Club including a fifteen year-old schoolboy Royston Gabe-Jones who, after a promising series of matches for the County Colts, was drafted into the county’s squad for their end-of-season match against Leicestershire at the Arms Park. He defended stoutly and helped to avoid the follow-on, but this proved to be his one and only appearance at first-class level.
The number of players to appear for Glamorgan during 1922 might have even higher. For example, Bill Settle, a BBC employee and a batsman with a decent record in the Lancashire Leagues and for Cardiff was sounded out. He also helped with the tannoy duties at the Arms Park when his commitments allowed, but he was unable to get time off tom play. Dai Davies from Llanelli CC was also invited to play, but the Glamorgan administrators were unsure whether the regulations would allow the Carmarthenshire-born all-rounder to appear in Championship games, and chose others instead.
By the end of the summer, the Club’s deficit stood at £2,800, and it would have also been higher if some money-saving measures had not been introduced. At lunchtimes at the Arms Park, the amateurs enjoyed a pre-booked bar snack with their counterparts in one of the hotels in Westgate Street, whilst their wives, daughters and mothers were cajoled into preparing the sandwiches and cakes for the tea interval. Indeed, it was said about one gentleman that he owed his place in the side more to the prowess of his wife in the kitchen than his own abilities with either bat or ball!
Every penny from the gate receipts was gleefully collected by the county’s Treasurer, and during the intervals in games at Cardiff, he dispatched the 12th man down to Cardiff Docks to pay the gate receipts into the Club’s bank. If it looked as if the game might end early, he was also detailed to return with sufficient funds to pay the professional. As far as the opposing teams were concerned, they held the Welsh county in such low esteem, that they would only book into hotels on the basis of two days play, rather than three.
The balance sheet and the end of season averages made depressing reading for the Club’s officials, but there was still a mood of optimism purveying the committee rooms. After much discussion, and calls in the Press for the Club to return to the Minor County ranks, it was decided to press on with securing first-class fixtures for 1923. As opening batsman Tom Morgan said the following summer during a pre-season interview with a local journalist “this year is exceedingly vital…..for if we fail now the consequences may be serious since we may never reach the same pinnacle of first-class status again.”