A spate of injuries and loss of form led to Glamorgan struggling in both formats of the game and ended the summer bottom of both the County Championship and Sunday League. They also registered a solitary victory in their four group games in the Benson and Hedges Cup and, after a facile 167-run victory over Staffordshire at Sophia Gardens, exited the Nat West Trophy as they lost their second round game of the 60 overs competition against Hampshire.
The injury list included Rodney Ontong who, in his Benefit Year, lost his battle to regain fitness after the horrific car crash the previous year in which he had badly damaged his knee. Geoff Holmes broke a thumb on the pre-season tour to Barbados whilst Matthew Maynard only made one century. His loss of form and the injuries left a gaping hole in the batting armoury and contributed greatly to the lack of victories in the longer and short formats.
Like Ontong before him, the worries of captaincy weighed heavily on the mind of Hugh Morris and, after the Championship defeat against Gloucestershire at Bristol, the young leader stood down in order to focus on his batting. It also led to the elevation of senior professional Alan Butcher to the captaincy. His reign began with consecutive nine-wicket defeats in the Championship against Derbyshire and Leicestershire. His leadership over the course of the next few years was a decisive element to the development of the squad and both Maynard and Morris back in the runs, to say nothing of the talismanic presence of Viv Richards, Butcher’s captaincy was a key factor in their success during the 1990s.
Quiet, unassuming, but ruthless and technically astute as a captain, Butcher was also a fervent advocate of the Spirit of Cricket, as seen during the final round of Championship games in 1989 when Glamorgan met Worcestershire, the leaders of the competition who began the contest at New Road just one point ahead of second-placed Kent. It was also one of the experimental batch of four-day games which were being trialled in the hope of grooming county players for the longer and more rigorous demands of Test cricket. But after two days Kent were well on their way to an innings victory at Canterbury, whilst Worcestershire were well on top, and having secured maximum bonus points and the weather set fair, seemed destined to clinch the title.
But when the groundsman pulled back the covers on the third morning, he found a large patch of engine oil close to a good length at one end. In no time the square was a hive of activity, with fans and industrial heaters trying to dry out the damaged surface. Some speculated that the match would be abandoned, but Butcher said he was happy to continue. His pragmatism was a victory for the game as a whole, if not his side, as few deliveries misbehaved and by the time the Cathedral bells chimed for four o’clock, Worcestershire had won by an innings and the title-winning celebrations were in full throw.
By this time, there was another important change in the Glamorgan attack with Steve Barwick, becoming the next bowler in a distinguished lineage to experiment with a slower style. Realising that his seam-bowling skills were on the wane, Steve had practised assiduously with off-cutters. After hours in the nets he felt confident to give them a go when Glamorgan met Somerset in their Championship match at Taunton, but one question remained. What sort of field should the off-cutter have? The simple answer was to ask the expert, Don Shepherd who was at the ground in his guise as a summariser with BBC Wales. A call duly went out for the old sorcerer to advise his apprentice, although the message for Don to visit the Glamorgan changing room led a few wags to surmise if the veteran was going to make a surprise return to the game!
Above – the sorceror and his apprentice. Left is Don Shepherd and right Steve Barwick. Photo Credit – Glamorgan Cricket Archives.
Barwick also bowled cutters in the one-day games in 1989 as Glamorgan continued the pattern of staging one-day games at a series of out-grounds. After the financial success of this flag-flying venture during their Centenary Year, there was a repetition in 1989 as Aberystwyth and Merthyr Tydfil staged further matches. As far as the latter was concerned, the county matches took place at the Hoover’s Sports Ground to the south of the town which a hundred years before had been one of the industrial hot-beds of South Wales.
In another throwback to South Wales’ industrial past, ASW, a steel-making company based at Cardiff Docks maintained their sponsorship of the Club. Part of the deal was an association with the end-of-season awards and there could be no finer choice for 1989 as the ASW Player of the Year than Steve Watkin whose bowling was the undoubted success story of a difficult summer. The lionhearted bowler had won his county cap following the victory in June against Lancashire at Old Trafford and when rain prevented Glamorgan from bowling a ball in their match with Worcestershire at Pontypridd, Watkin was denied the opportunity of becoming the Club’s first bowler since 1970 to take 100 first-class wickets.