Cricket in Swansea and the Mullagh Medal

Martin Chandler | 9:18am GMT 02 November 2025

Published: 2025
Pages: 36
Author: Hignell, Andrew
Publisher: Museum of Welsh Cricket
Rating: 3.5 stars

The fourth monograph from the Museum of Welsh Cricket is the third from Andrew Hignell, and possibly the best yet. Certainly it deals with an excellent if slightly sad subject.

On 31 August 2025 the last ever game of cricket was played at the St Helen’s ground in Swansea. It was a ground that had, since its earliest days, shared its facilities with the local Rugby Union club. The ground is now being redeveloped and in the future will be home only to the oval ball game.

Which in many ways is a great pity, as St Helen’s is a cricket ground that has witnessed some great days. Foremost amongst those was in 1968 when the legendary West Indian all-rounder Garry Sobers, playing for Nottinghamshire in a Championship match against Glamorgan, struck Malcolm Nash for six sixes in an over. Weeks before that the ground had witnessed a more successful outcome for Glamorgan when they beat the 1968 Australians, as indeed they had their 1964 predecessors.

A popular venue for the big matches because of the number of paying customers the ground could accommodate much of this monograph is taken up by descriptions of the major matches to have taken place on the ground, but there is also the story of how the game developed in the town of Swansea.

In some ways the most interesting part of the story is that involving the man after whom the Mullagh Medal is named. There will be some reading this review who will be taken aback by, in such an account, a reference in the title to the annual award for the player of the match in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a mere ten thousand miles away.

As readers of the monograph will learn the connection, if a little tenuous is certainly a real one. It centres around the photograph that is the centrepiece of the medal, one of the 1868 Aboriginal side, taken on their visit to Swansea.

So once more we have a thoroughly worthwhile booklet from a publisher who deserves to be supported. £10.50 inclusive of UK postage and packing is all this well illustrated and nicely produced A4 monograph will cost you. Copies can be sourced via museum@glamorgancricket.co.uk