If Things Don’t Change by Alun Granfield
IF THINGS DON’T CHANGE…
I have recently been researching the British Newspaper Archive looking for stories about our club from the dim and distant past and decided to have a look at the 1924-25 season to see how we were doing a hundred years ago. Things started out quite well, with a report of our first game of the season, away at Weston Super-Mare on 6 September 1924, which we won by ten points to six. The only Pontypridd player mentioned in the report was Nelson Goodwin, who was a rising star in the side and apparently due for great things in the future. Unfortunately, a report at the end of the season told us that he had “gone north” and turned professional!
Reports of Pontypridd games in the press then started to dry up, with the club just being mentioned in lists of Welsh rugby results. The story that was emerging was not a happy one, with defeat after defeat being reported and with just the very occasional win. However, a report following a narrow defeat to Aberavon in December did say that “there is every prospect of Pontypridd, with a little encouragement, developing into a really good side.” Damning with faint praise?
More defeats followed into the new year and this sad story continued as the season carried on. It must have been particularly galling for rugby supporters in the area that the town’s soccer team was doing very well in the Southern League and looked as though they might gain promotion that season. It was clear that soccer was king, not only in the valleys but in Wales in general.
This situation was highlighted in an interesting article in the London Daily Chronicle on Wednesday, 1st April 1925, which argued for a league system to be applied to Welsh rugby and struck a surprising contemporary note. It began:
Its low standard and the counter attraction of Soccer have materially affected both the interest in the Welsh rugby game and the gates. It is therefore not surprising that suggestions are being put forward to alter this state of affairs.
The writer accepted that the “ultra conservative” nature of Welsh rugby was very much against such an innovation as the introduction of a proper league system but argued that change was needed if rugby was not to die in Wales. His proposal was to run three leagues of ten clubs each, with promotion and relegation, giving the teams 18 matches, and allowing the top clubs “such as Cardiff and Swansea” to have “about the same number of friendly games with English sides.” The article went on to say:
I suggest that the first league could be composed of Newport, Pontypool, Cross Keys, Cardiff, Bridgend, Maesteg, Aberavon, Neath, Swansea and Llanelly. The second could be made up of Blaenavon, Pill Harriers, Penarth, Abertillery, Tredegar, Skewen, Briton Ferry, Treorchy, Pontypridd, and Aberaman.
I have no doubt that many of the sides not mentioned here would dispute the list, but the writer went on to say that, with promotion and relegation, “time would soon remedy that.” His final comment may well be applied to the state of our game in Wales today:
A sick patient needs a physician. Welsh rugby is the sick patient. Maybe a league is just the physician it is in need of.
Those of us who love the game of rugby football and this great club of ours can only hope that the long awaited “plan” for the future of Welsh rugby will be the remedy that the sick patient requires. We have yet to see the details of that plan, and I am worried that the still “ultra conservative” nature of Welsh rugby will prevent the strong medicine that the game needs being provided. Only time will tell.
Alun Granfield
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