21 January 1933, Twickenham. England v Wales.

It was one of the outstanding sporting crossover occasions. The Wales rugby XV that day (there were no substitutes in those times), beating England, included no fewer than four current or future Glamorgan cricket players.

The man who scored all the points in the famous 7-4 victory, raising the Twickenham bogey, was Ronnie Boon, playing on the wing for Wales. He began his Glamorgan career in 1931, and played 11 games. He later moved to Scotland for work, cutting short what might have been a promising cricket career. 

Viv Jenkins, the Wales full back that day at Twickenham was one of the true all-rounders of the 1930s. He played rugby for Cardiff, Bridgend, London Welsh and Cambridge University, won 14 caps for  Wales, and was vice captain of the touring British Lions in 1938.

He made his county debut with Glamorgan – he  batted, bowled and kept wicket – in 1931. In his first season with Glamorgan he played a match-winning innings in the rain-affected game with Surrey at Cardiff. Glamorgan were chasing 200 in 165 minutes. The novice Jenkins came in at 146/6 and saw his side home with three wickets and six minutes to spare. Jenkins went on to be the rugby correspondent of the Sunday Times,

Maurice Turnbull, playing scrum half at Twickenham that day, captained Cambridge University at cricket in 1929, and Glamorgan from 1930 until 1939. He was one of Wisden’s five cricketers of the year in 1931. He played nine times for England, as the first member of the Glamorgan team to play Test cricket, He passed 1000 runs in a season 10 times and scored three double-centuries,

Turnbull was an English selector in 1938 and 1939. In his relatively short career he scored 17,544 first-class runs, with 29 centuries and 82 50s. He won two Welsh rugby caps and played hockey three times for Wales. 

His international rugby career came to an end after what is described as “poor player conduct” on the boat to Belfast for the international against Ireland in 1933. (Never happens these days, of course.) Turnbull was one of the Wales players who never played international rugby again after that crossing. He was killed during the Normandy landings in 1944, aged 38

The biggest player, in so many senses, to run out at Twickenham that day was Wilf Wooller, who probably would not have disputed being described as Wales’s answer to CB Fry.

He was called up, as a centre, to that winning Welsh team at the age of 20, and made a try-saving tackle.

Wilf Wooller was a brilliant all-round sportsman. As well as rugby for Cardiff and Wales, he played football for Cardiff City, scoring a hat-trick at centre-forward. He signed for Barry Town in 1938, intending to turn out for the club on week nights while continuing his rugby at weekends. He represented Wales at squash racquets and the Cardiff Athletic Club at bowls.

As a cricketer, he made his first-class debut for Cambridge University against Sussex in 1935. In the same year he was selected for Cambridge University against Oxford University (rugby), which made him a Double Blue.

Wooller first played for Glamorgan in 1938. During his war service  in the Far East, he was captured by the Japanese and spent three years in prisoner of war camp. Described as the happy-go-lucky amateur before the war, he came back a much changed man, his body no longer able to withstand the rigours of rugby, which he said had been his first sporting love.

But he enjoyed cricket, and was looking for “a fresh start in life”, according to his biographer. Some fresh start! In 24 years with Glamorgan Wooller scored 13,593 runs, took 958 wickets and held 412 catches. He missed several chances to play for England because of business commitments. 

Wooller led Glamorgan to their first County Championship title in 1948.  After he retired he commentated on cricket for the BBC, and was at the microphone at Swansea that famous day in 1968 to describe Gary Sobers striking six sixes in an over. 

***

I acquired my dual love for cricket and rugby, each in its season, from my father. But this was quite normal in those days in Wales.

It wasn’t a question of having a favourite – you simply passed from one to the other, in April and September. It helped that the rugby and cricket seasons did not overlap, so there is no competition between the sports, even briefly, because they were never on at the same time. (We followed overseas cricket tours in the winter on the radio, as there was no television coverage in those days.)

One of the first players I was aware of, watching Glamorgan, was the formidable captain Wilf Wooller. He represented the golden period for Welsh cricket and rugby players, some of who really did excel in both sports, during the first 30 years of the 20th century.

In Wales the first two crossover superstars were the Bancroft brothers, Jack and Billy, in the early 1900s. It may have something to do with the fact that their father was groundsman at the famous St. Helen’s rugby and cricket ground * – one of a small number of first-class cricket grounds that also incorporate a rugby pitch. International rugby was played there into the 1950s.

Both brothers would have played international rugby and first class cricket on that pitch in Swansea. In the summer Jack was a batsman and a wicket-keeper for Glamorgan. In the winter he played for Swansea RFC and Wales, scoring 19 points against France in the 1910 international held at St Helens, at the time a record for a Welsh player in a match.

Brother Billy won 33 rugby caps for Wales and was the first paid cricket professional for Glamorgan. 

One of the last to play rugby and cricket full time in Wales was Alan Rees. He was is a solid cricketer, a reliable bat, on the Glamorgan staff from 1955 until 1968. And a useful fielder – he caught Burge off the bowling of Truman when he came on as a sub in England’s game against Australia at Headingley in 1965. 

The same year, playing for Glamorgan against Middlesex at Lords he became only the second player in county cricket to be given out “handling the ball”. 

It was one of only 61 instances in first-class matches. (This form of dismissal no longer exists, having been absorbed into the “obstructing the field” law.)

Alan Rees played club rugby for Maesteg and won four caps for Wales in 1962, before going to play rugby league for Leeds. Despite that move he continued for another six years, full-time, for Glamorgan

Another two-sport player was Keith Jarrett. He played for Glamorgan Second XI from 1965 to 1967, appearing, as an 18-year-old, in two first-class matches in 1967 – one each against the Indian and Pakistani tourists. 

1967 was the year when Jarrett scored either the first or the seventh “best try ever” for Wales, depending on which poll you read. In his first game for Wales, in Cardiff against England, still only 18, he fielded the ball on the halfway line and sprinted down the left touchline to score unopposed, converting his own try from just inside the touchline. Jarrett toured with the British Lions, then briefly went north to rugby league. But his sporting career was prematurely ended by a stroke, at the age of just 25. At the time of writing, he is still with us.

***

Since the late 20th century, with the advent of professional rugby in the 1990s and the much more intense cricket calendar, it’s been almost impossible to pursue two professional careers, simultaneously, in two different sports. 

Even if players were is so minded, they would face a clash of dates. English cricket now plays on well into September. But football and rugby training and pre-season games start in July.

And professional rugby players follow very specific conditioning and training regimes. It’s the same with cricketers. 

However, at least until very recently, there are examples of players who have shone in cricket and rugby.

I have a two more examples, both Welsh players. One is back row rugby forward Aaron Shingler. 

He had played as a right-handed bat and medium-fast bowler for three seasons in the Glamorgan Second XI, joining the senior Glamorgan team for the 2007 season. He played once for England Under-19s in a Youth One-Day International against Bangladesh in 2005 alongside Moeen Ali, taking the wicket of Tamim Iqbal. 

He turned to professional rugby, with Llanelli Scarlets, and has 27 caps for Wales. In 2018 he was named man of the match in the Wales v Scotland fixture

The other is Jake Ball. He was was born in Ascot. His family emigrated to Australia from England in the early to 2000s when he was 16. He joined Fremantle District Cricket Club, where he was mentored by former Australian opening batsman Geoff Marsh, 

Described as a “prodigious speedster”, he opened the bowling for Western Australia’s under-19s team,. He played alongside Test all-rounder Mitch Marsh, (who had gone in the opposite direction, choosing cricket over Australian Rules football.) Ball once dismissed former Test player Nic Maddinson, left-handed opener, for a duck.

A state contract was on the cards. But although Ball enjoyed bowling, standing in the outfield bored him. So he pursued his true passion – rugby.  In 2012 he was lured by Scarlets where he played as a second row forward, winning 47 caps for Wales.

It’s galling for mere watchers of the game like me, who, despite being keen sports fans, were never much good at sport itself. But it’s an obvious conclusion to draw from the examples here that there is a select band of people with natural ability, with instinctive hand and ball coordination, who could probably have excelled at whatever discipline they turned their hands to. 

It’s fun to speculate on how familiar talents might have developed in other sports.

What if, for example, a player of Ian Botham’s ability (he did play football for Scunthorpe) had been recruited as a callow teenager to somewhere like Manchester United’s Academy, like Marcus Rachford? We can easily picture Botham winning the World Cup for England, as a footballer; but maybe David Beckham taking back the Ashes, leading the England cricket team at Lords, is a fantasy too far.

• No more first class cricket at St. Helen’s, Swansea, sadly. The Ospreys rugby team is moving there next year (2025) on a new synthetic pitch which will overlap the cricket circle.