Village Cricket, Rugby And The Mount

A Memory of Dinas Powis.

The Common, which is a delightful huge stretch of open ground from Cardiff Road to the Westra, was the sporting centre for the villagers. Here the cricket club played and the rugby club also held their matches too. Just off the Common is the home of both the Bowls Club and tennis club.
My memory of playing for the cricket club was on the day of the 1966 World Cup final when England were taking on Germany at Wembley. Because I wanted to watch this on the TV I had not put my name down as being available to play cricket - however, the fixture had not been cancelled (perhaps being Welsh) and about half an hour before the football kicked off the doorbell rang and a lad asked if I would come down to the common to make up the numbers. Some weeks beforehand whilst playing at Old Monktonians ground at Wenvoe I had taken a medium fast balled full toss on the chest and on the day in question this had began to hurt quite badly. Dinas Powys were to field and the captain put me out at mid off - after a few overs my chest was really very painful and I asked the captain if I could leave the field. He thought this was a ploy to get back home to see the World Cup final but I managed to struggle to get to Betty Campbell's front door - she was the village's district nurse and lived just off the common on the Twyncyn. She drove me down to the village surgery where one of the doctor's, Dr. Bater lived over the shop. He refused to see me until half time and then diagnosed that I had sprung a rib and strapped me up. Nurse Campbell then took me home so I got to see the whole of the extra time period including the Geoff Hurst goal right at the end of the game.
My memory of the rugby matches is as a spectator - Dinas Powys had a reputation of being a rough team but it was the state of the pitch which led to so many injuries. Eventually the Welsh RFU threatened to close the club down if nothing was done about the pitch under which, just below the surface, were huge boulders. Once these were dug up the pitch became playable and the number of injuries sustained declined markedly.
At the right of the photo behind the wall is the villages answer to the local manor house where the "lord" of the manor Major General Henry Lee lived.