It’s festival time. No, no . . . put your tent away, drop the sleeping bag, and take off those wellies, we’re talking cricket festivals. Richard Thomas bangs the drum for Swansea cricket at St. Helen’s which gets underway this weekend.
Glamorgan are among a dwindling group of first-class counties who host county cricket on out-grounds. In fact, the Welsh county are a rarity in that they have two venues they still use outside of their Cardiff HQ – St Helen’s in Swansea and Colwyn Bay Cricket Club.
In a climate of counties tugging on the purse strings, out-ground cricket festivals are a dying breed, especially as they have to be consummate money-making ventures these days otherwise they are cruelly struck from the fixture list never to return.
Swansea is one such out-ground which does generate cash for the county thanks mainly to the tireless travails of John Williams, the chairman of the St Helen’s Balconiers. He has ensured for a number of years now that one of the most historic venues in British sport retains a modicum of high profile.
Glamorgan return to St Helen’s this coming Sunday for a Royal London One Day Cup match against Kent Spitfires followed by a Specsavers County Championship game against Durham beginning on Friday, 26th May. It’s a welcome double helping for the west Wales cricket fan who has felt increasingly starved of cricket since Sophia Gardens’ transformation into the Swalec Stadium.
It may not be as solidly anchored in the cricket fixture list as Yorkshire’s annual trips to Scarborough or as attractive as the festival week in Cheltenham, but it is still hugely important in the sport’s continuing mission to spread the cricket word.
You may ask: why is it important to continue top-class county cricket at St Helen’s, a ground that many people believe is well past the sell-by date?
Yes, there’s plenty rust and gone are the days when it was a priority for the local council to keep it spick and span. But rub off the rust and look past the dilapidation and there is a rich history shining through, a ground that has staged international cricket, rugby union and rugby league.
The cricket records are heavyweight, the moments iconic and the results indelible. Sobers’ six sixes in 1968, Glamorgan wins over the ’64 Australians and the 51’ Springboks, and the 50,000 who squeezed into the ground to see the legendary ’48 Australians. Health and safety were about as elusive back then as a Bradman failure.
More recently, comprehensive wins over Sussex and Gloucestershire at the ground helped Glamorgan on their way to lifting the 1997 County Championship.
The ground has witnessed fewer and fewer milestones and great moments since then although Robert Croft did claim his 1,000th victim at his home club seven years ago a moment which was celebrated when two former Glamorgan players, Don Shepherd and Peter Walker, brought a glass of champagne on the pitch for the off spinner.
And so, Glamorgan return to the ground this weekend hoping just to register a victory which may propel them back into the reckoning for the quarter-finals.
Their dwindling hopes had been given a lift by a seat-of-their-pants victory at Essex at the weekend. Needing seven to win off the last over Australian seamer Michael Hogan kept his nerve to deliver a one-run victory. Something similar on Sunday may not necessarily be another iconic St Helen’s moment but it will be a welcome victory nonetheless.