On 25 August 1948 at Cardiff Arms Park, Glamorgan beat Hampshire by an innings and 24 runs to clinch the County Championship for the first time in their 27-year first-class history. Wilf Wooller, who had taken over as captain-secretary the year before, lifted the trophy in front of a delirious Welsh crowd. Glamorgan are the only Welsh county to have won the championship; their 1948 title was built on rugby-style fielding, low-budget improvisation (a portable mangle for drying the outfield) and a band of professionals nobody else wanted.
Welsh cricket had long been a poor relation of rugby and the Glamorgan club's finances were marginal. Wooller, charismatic and abrasive in equal measure, had served with the Royal Artillery in Singapore and survived three years as a Japanese POW (Changi).
Through August 1948 Glamorgan, Yorkshire and Surrey jostled at the top. Glamorgan's wins over Surrey at The Oval (21 August) and Hampshire at Cardiff Arms Park (25 August) settled the table.
Glamorgan had joined the County Championship in 1921 and finished bottom three times in the 1930s. Wooller, a former Wales rugby international and Cambridge cricketer, returned from a Japanese POW camp in 1945 and was appointed captain-secretary in late 1946.
His 1948 side relied on a small core: Wooller himself, Jim Pleass, Allan Watkins (the only Test player), Phil Clift, the spinners John Clay (50) and Len Muncer, the off-cutter Norman Hever, and the seamer Willie Jones. There was no first-class star batsman; Wooller drilled them in extreme close-catching practice. Travelling around the country in a small lorry, Glamorgan carried a large mangle and blankets in the hope of drying outfields if it rained.
With four games to play they led the table. They beat Surrey at The Oval on 21 August, then on 25 August at Cardiff Arms Park took a Hampshire side apart by an innings and 24 runs. Wooller and Watkins shared the bowling honours; the title was Wales's first.
Late 1946 — Wooller appointed captain-secretary
1947 — Glamorgan finish 5th
Aug 1948 — back-to-back wins v Surrey and Hampshire seal the title
25 Aug 1948 — Hampshire bt by innings and 24 at Cardiff Arms Park
Final standings: Glamorgan 12 wins, 4 draws, 0 losses (sic — actually 13W-12D-3L)
1921
Glamorgan joins County Championship
1946
Wooller appointed captain-secretary
21 Aug 1948
Glamorgan beat Surrey at The Oval
25 Aug 1948
Hampshire beaten at Cardiff Arms Park; title secured
1969
Second Glamorgan championship
“He gave the team a sense of purpose deriving from a mixture of rugby fervour, military strategy and his own remarkable personality.”
Glamorgan's professionals were paid bonus payments largely funded by a public subscription in Wales. Crowds at Cardiff doubled the next season. The county would not win the championship again until 1969.
The most romantic championship in pre-Packer county cricket. A side built on close-catching, fielding fitness and Wooller's force of personality won at the first opportunity after his appointment, and remains one of only three new champions in the post-war era.
Glamorgan remain the only Welsh first-class county; their three championships (1948, 1969, 1997) all came under captains in the Wooller mould. Sophia Gardens carries a Wooller Stand and the county museum at Cardiff includes the 1948 mangle.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.