A Lewis: True followers must not suffer and die quietly (19 Jul 1998)

19 July 1998

True followers must not suffer and die quietly

By Tony Lewis

I AM forced to lament. I have never lost the young boy's view of my favourite games, nor have I swerved in support of England at cricket and Wales at rugby.

More locally, I swore life-long allegiance to Glamorgan, the daffodil boys of cricket, and at rugby, to Neath, the men in black with the white Maltese crosses. I have needed courage and a flint streak of stoicism to sustain these devotions because England's cricketers and Wales's rugby players rarely win matches: these days they mostly loose them by horrendous margins.

And yet there has always been a nobility about my suffering. In school days we were instructed: always support your team when it is struggling. True followers of England are always prepared for the pain of an innings defeat and then you must not squeal.

My French teacher at Neath Grammar School, Walter Thomas, an older brother of Gwyn, the writer and broadcaster, suffered badly from sinusitis and catarrh - "No medicine for it, boy, just a recital of Alfred De Vigny's La Mort Du Loup morning and evening", a reference to the poem about a wolf, wounded by hunters, who suffers in silence and dies without a murmur.

The dying bit may appear an exaggeration when we are talking only of a game, but alas last Thursday a part of my sporting life did pass away. Neath Rugby Club were declared bankrupt, debts of £600,000 had accumulated in this mad professional age. The Welsh Rugby Union may rescue rugby on the famous Gnoll ground and possibly include the name Neath in the new playing arrangements, but the lovely old Neath Rugby Club founded in 1871, are dead and gone.

Also, last week the rugby unions of the southern hemisphere announced that they were not prepared to play international matches against "under-powered teams" such as Wales. Indeed, Wales have been fortunate to retain fixtures with England, so inexpertly do they play what is a national pastime. And so the schoolboy images fade of Neath's great forwards Roy John, Courtney Meredith and Rees Stephens: they are vanishing in the first era of the professional game.

It is cricket's turn on Thursday as England try again against South Africa. I must pack my solecism kit again for Trent Bridge. Why aren't things the way they were? As small kids in the late 1940s in our dead-end road of 10 semi-detached houses, there was always a timeless Test in progress unless it was raining hard, in which case we would retreat to our front room and set up the game with the marble, bowled under arm, at the neat wooden wickets which were defended by the eight-inch wooden bat. Played on the knees, this game was carefully recorded by a scorer pulling the numbers on paper loops through slats in a shoebox.

The fielders were cigarette cards. When you were batting you were surrounded by swarthy faces above beautiful county crests and making a cover drive between Jack Hobbs and Cyril Washbrook was a precision performance.

Nostalgia is no good except that it leads me to consider why my twin loves, English cricket and Welsh rugby, appear to be so out of step when other countries are surging ahead. They do have one problem in common: the games are infrequently taught - if taught at all in State primary schools, where most teachers are women.

It would be wrong to suggest that women cannot teach cricket, especially as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of W G Grace, whose mother Martha was a tutor expert enough to take David Lloyd's job. The only way back for cricket in England and Wales is by a "catch 'em young" determination. Most of the ECB's money should be channelled down towards the grass roots.

Forget the two-division County Championship. There is no tougher achievement in British cricket than winning the championship against 17 other counties. Instead, we must face the truth that sharpening competitive instincts has to happen when children are much younger.

Viv Richards learnt on a beach, Gareth Edwards on a narrow street with high pavements. The ECB and WRU have youth schemes, but they appear to be spending fortunes on top-heavy organisations and hoping it will all come right by investing in an older generation of players. Unlike De Vigny's wolf, I do not think we should suffer and die sans parler.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)