1973 was a landmark summer for Glamorgan Cricket as they hosted England for the first-ever time on Welsh soil for their one-day contest against New Zealand at Swansea. The early 1970s had seen the introduction of one-day internationals into the summer schedule with England playing their first limited-overs match against Australia in Melbourne in January 1971 after the Test Match at the same ground had been washed out without a ball being bowled. During the visit to the UK of the 1972 Australians, three one-day internationals were included in the schedule, so the following summer, more were added, including the match in the Prudential Trophy game at St. Helen’s on 18 July.
The allocation of the game to Swansea followed an extensive period of lobbying to the games authorities by Wilf Wooller who argued that this new format of cricket should be allocated to different venues than the traditional ones used for Test Matches, especially grounds such as Swansea, which had a reputation for attracting decent crowds for tourist matches.
Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
Despite a poor weather forecast, a crowd of around 10,000 turned up after the Glamorgan authorities had spent around £4,000 ensuring the Swansea ground was up to standard for the international contest, with a new scoreboard erected at the top of the bank on the eastern side and replacing the two-sided structure adjacent to Gorse Lane, besides building a new press box next to the Pavilion and erecting five marquees on the rugby pitch in order to provide dining and catering facilities for the crowd, VIP guests and sponsors.
They were treated to an England victory by seven wickets and saw a forthright century by Warwickshire’s Dennis Amiss. His innings followed a relatively tame performance by the Kiwi’s who slumped to 15-4 after some probing new ball bowling by John Snow and Geoff Arnold. Glenn Turner and Vic Pollard mounted a recovery mission, taking New Zealand to 158 after 52.5 overs, but their efforts were put into context as Geoff Boycott and Amiss added 96 for the first wicket and revelled in the easier batting conditions.
On the domestic front, Glamorgan had another modest summer in both three-day and one-day cricket, although more games were won in both formats than in the previous two seasons combined. A number of young homegrown players were given extended opportunities in the 1st XI, including batsmen John Hopkins, Mike Llewellyn, Geoff Ellis, Arthur Francis and Alan Lewis Jones, spinners Barry Lloyd and Clive Davies, plus seamers Stuart Harrison and Bob Dudley-Jones.
Above – threeof the promising young Colts. Mike Llewellyn, Arthur Francis and John Hopkins. Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
The opportunities given to these uncapped players was not entirely by design as Tony Lewis continued to struggle with a knee injury, whilst Roy Fredericks left in mid-June to join the West Indian tour. Alan Jones and Majid also enjoyed indifferent seasons, but on the plus side, Roger Davis flourished as an opening batter whilst Malcolm Nash had another successful summer with the ball with East African all-rounder John Solanky, who had arrived in South Wales via the Devon Leagues, showing promise, especially in one-day games.
However, it was clear that Glamorgan needed a front-line bowler to spearhead their attack and after much discussion at the end of the season, it was agreed – only after the casting vote of the chairman of the cricket committee – to dispense with Roy Fredericks’ services and to hire an overseas fast bowler. As Club captain, Majid recommended signing either Dennis Lille or Jeff Thomson of Australia, whilst others suggested Vincent van der Bijl or Garth le Roux of South Africa. Whereas all went on to make their mark in international and county cricket, Glamorgan’s eventual choice was Greg Armstrong, a young Barbadian, who apparently had impressed a watching Glamorgan committee member whilst visiting the West Indies. But bowling at the other end in this particular game was Michael Holding and legend has it that the unfortunate official got the two names muddled up when making his recommendations on returning to the UK. Whereas Holding went on to win many honours with the West Indies, Armstrong had difficulty adapting to the slow, low Welsh wickets, besides being plagued by run-up and no ball problems during his two summers in county cricket.