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In this episode we make use of the MCC Sound Archive to bring you the story of Blaina Cricket Club.

The MCC project, Taking the Field was aimed at recording the oral history of cricket clubs throughout the breadth of the UK. Members of the Blaina Cricket Club had already started recording their history for a published book.

The book can be bought here:

https://welsh-academic-press.shopfactory.com/contents/en-uk/p12_Blaenau-Cricket-Club.html

The Facebook page of the project still exists and can be found here:

facebook.com/takingthefield

We talked to Emma Peplow, who was the full time officer with Taking the Field and Alan Williams, long time member and Chairperson of Blaina Cricket Club. Interspersed with our interview with Emma and Alan are excerpts from the MCC Sound Archive. We have interviews with the following:

Diane Williams
Alan Williams
David Jones
Alan Lewis
and Ernie Barber

We hear about the history of the club going back to its earliest beginnings in the 19th Century and it's high point in the early 20th Century.

Emma and Alan talk about one of the highlights of the project which was being interviewed on the Test Match Special lunchtime slot during the Test Match against Sri Lanka.

Alan tells us about the early sponsorship of the club and one of the outstanding individuals who helped keep the club going in the 1920s, Evan Watkins. His wikipaedia page is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Watkins

Emma tells us about the international dimension of Taking the Field

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Ossie begins by talking about his experiences as Chairman of Glamorgan CCC and the difficulties cricket and Glamorgan faced in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

We move swiftly talking about the Kerry Packer Circus and it’s impact on the game. Ossie mentions the Tony Grieg affair which arose out of this and then talks about the Gatting affair in 1988 when England captain Mike Gatting was caught on camera pointing his finger at Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana. For more on that you can go here

https://www.wisden.com/cricket-news/the-gatting-rana-fall-out-when-a-whole-day-of-test-cricket-was-lost-to-a-player-umpire-argument

We then move to talking about the idea of a UK Board of Cricket. By the way Ossie gives us a little bit of history about the role of the MCC.

Ossie tells the story of the England AND WALES Cricket Board and how it came to be called that and the implications of that for the development of the first class game and it’s various academies and pathway organisations.

After finishing his work as an administrator with the first class game, Ossie talks about his involved with the founding and development of what was called the Cricket Foundation but what became the Chance to Shine Charity. In particular, we hear the story of how the ex Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, got involved and managed to get a huge investment form the government of the day to take cricket into primary schools.

We talk about Ossie’s involvement with the Sports Council of Wales and he talks at length about Tom Cartwright’s involvement as a coach in welsh cricket.

Ossie reflects on the game today with particularly interesting comments about the County Championship and Test cricket, including ‘Baz Ball’.

We end with Ossie’s thoughts on welsh cricket and the need to produce some more of our homegrown talent.

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In this episode we return to our chat with Ossie Wheatley. He finished as a player in 1969 but before that he was already becoming involved in the administration of the game.

To begin, he gives us an outline of his career, noting his involvement with English cricket form 1963 onwards. He tells us the various committees on which he served and the roles he undertook including being a Test selector. Latterly, he took up positions with the Sports Council of Wales. Along the way he gives a bit of background to his career including his recollections of the development of junior cricket in Wales. Most importantly, he intervened during the development of the ECB to ensure that the organisation would be known as the England and Wales Cricket Board, an insertion that became crucial, amongst other things, to attracting Test cricket to Wales in 2009.

He asserts his belief in the importance of successful elite sports teams in the development of cricket in any particular place.

We talk a little about Leslie Deakins, ex secretary of Warwickshire County Cricket Club and his impact on the club and creating Edgbaston as a Test ground.

We talk about the Clarke Report in 1965, what it set out to do, who was part of the committee and what it achieved. Along the way he talks about the nature of professional cricketers and the way they ensure they control the developments in the game and what might be the best way for cricket to develop. He airs his concern that developments today may mean the success of a few ‘super’ clubs at the expense of the others.

He talks about the experience of being a Test selector which he was for two years from 1972 to 1974.

We finish this episode by talking about how Ossie became Chairman of Glamorgan County Cricket Club in 1976. The team was experiencing a crisis with player sackings, Majid Khan leaving the club and a challenge to the committees running of the club. He talks about his deep concerns over the involvement of overseas players in the game and how it brought him to the point of standing down from the chairman’s role. He also talks about the poor facilities that existed in Wales for elite cricket and how that impacted on Glamorgan’s fortunes.

We talk briefly about Glamorgan’s visit to Lords in 1977 for the Gillette Cup Final and end with Ossie’s reflections on Glamorgan as a club and where it was in the late 70s and early 80s.

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In this episode we visit Hay-On-Wye Cricket Club which hosted a game against an All Stars XI from the Hay Literary Festival at the end of May.

We hear from club members and officials as they talk about their club as well as their preparations for this historic game.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Authors XI you can do so here:

https://www.authorscc.co.uk/

Their book and other publications associated with the authors can be purchased here:

https://www.authorscc.co.uk/cricket-publications

Anyone interested in playing cricket for the Hay Club or interested in what they do can contact the current secretary Tim Davies in the following ways:

timdhaycc@gmail.com

07964625755 (mobile)

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In this episode we bring together the biographer of Maurice Turbull, the museum's own Andrew Hignell and sports writer Bill Williams who's recent article about Maurice gave us the title of this episode.

Andrew's book can be purchased here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turnbull-Welsh-Sporting-Andrew-Hignell/dp/0752421840

Bill's article can be read here:

https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/football/maurice-turnbull-was-he-britains-most-complete-all-round-sportsman/

After Bill telling us a little bit about the newly discovered photo of Maurice, Andrew gives us a comprehensive outline of Maurice's sporting life, focusing on his first class cricket career with Glamorgan.

We talk about his sporting achievements, what he was like as a player in cricket, rugby and hockey as well as his prowess as a leader of the Glamorgan County Club.

We discuss the possibility of Maurice being Britain's greatest ever all round sportsman and the episode finishes with Andrew very poignantly telling the story of Maurice Turnbull's death after the D Day Landings.

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In this episode we speak to Professor Mike Wilson of Loughborough University about his work in the area of oral history and the two cricketing projects with which he was associated, Tale-Enders and Taking the field. Mike is currently Professor of Drama and Head of Creative Arts at Loughborough.

Tale-Enders was a project he was involved with alongside Andrew Hignell of the Museum of Welsh Cricket and coincided with plans for the new stadium at Sophia Gardens in the run up to the Ashes series of 2009. At that time, Mike was Head of Research at the Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries, University of Glamorgan which is now the University of South Wales in Pontypridd. Mike describes the origins of the project, his memories of working on it and some of the stories about welsh cricket clubs it uncovered.

Taking the Field was a project inspired by the Tale Enders Project and was organised under the auspices of the MCC. It expanded on the concepts explored by Tale Enders and, as it happened, assisted members of Blaina Cricket Club tell the story of their club.

In addition to talking about these projects, Mike tells us about his academic journey, his discovery of oral history and one or two of the key figures that have informed his development as someone interested in the power of stories for exploring history.

For those interested in Tale Enders, you can find the Flickr page which was used by the project by clicking on the link below. Be prepared to see some famous English cricketers as well as members of the Glamorgan CCC Team from days gone by. In addition, there are many photos taken of club grounds and club and country cricket in Wales from the early 20th century. Unfortunately, the photos are not labelled but the experience of looking at them is no less enjoyable for that:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tale-enders/

For those interested in the Taking the Field project there will be a follow up episode of the podcast featuring original audio recordings from the project with members of Blaina Cricket Club as well as an interview with Project Worker Emma Peplow and member of Blaina CC, Alan Williams.

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We begin this episode of the podcast by talking about Ossie's best first class bowling figures, quickly moving on to his nickname.

We talk about the nature of County cricket in the era that Ossie played including the extensive travelling that players had to undertake during a first class season.

Tony Lewis was heir apparent to the captaincy. Ossie talks about him before we launch into his memories of the 1969 Championship winning season. As well as his exploits Ossie provides us with a pen picture of the 13 man squad that brought the trophy back to Wales for the second time.

Ossie felt the record he held at Cambridge University, taking 80 wickets in a season was one of his outstanding achievements. He then talks about some of his memories of the period in which he played including PeterMay, Fred Trueman, Brian Statham and Frank Tyson. Ossie talks with pride about his economy rate in first class cricket and how, for him, putting pressure on batsmen is a key element to bowling which he feels has been taken out of the modern game.

We talk about what he regards as his best performance on a cricket field and the performances of others that made an impact on him. Ossie talks about the changes in cricket equipment that have impacted on the game.

He finishes with his final reflections on his playing career and the nature of the professional game.

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We talk to Ossie Wheatley of Cambridge University, Warwickshire and Glamorgan. He won a Blue for cricket at Cambridge University in 1957 and in 1958 when he amassed a record 80 wickets for the University. After coming down he had a brief but succesful career with Warwickshire for whom he took 110 wickets in 1960. In 1961 he was appointed captain of Glamorgan CCC as a replacement for the retiring Wilf Wooller and over the next few years he developed a wonderful bowling partnership with Jeff Jones.

His fast medium bowling added a new dimension to the Glamorgan attack and in 1968 he took 82 wickets at just 12 a piece. He was named as one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year in 1969.

In this episode he talks about his early life, his cricketing development at school and then University, his move to Glamorgan in 1961, the club's development in the early years of his captaincy and the wonderful victory over the touring Australians in 1964.

You can read the text of a wonderful interview between Ossie and Richard Bentley of the St Helen's Balconiers about that game here:

http://www.thebalconiers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/%E2%80%98Ossie%E2%80%99s-Tamed-the-Aussies%E2%80%99-Balconiers-Ossie-Wheatley-article.pdf