Cardiff Cavaliers Cricket Club

Club history: an overview

The Cavaliers owes its “beginnings” to the efforts of two groups of employees in the late 1970s – one set being employees of Wales & The Marches Post Office who were working at the Post Office HQ in The Parade, off City Road (a site now occupied by Coleg Glen Hafren); and the other group being at the Telecom HQ at Coryton, Cardiff. At that time, there was a busy and active sports’n’social scene throughout the Post Office with staff taking part in many ‘internal’ sports events, including 5-a-side football, golf, skittles, darts and six-a-side cricket.

A small but keen group, including ‘founder members to be’ Graeme Brown and Dave Wall began to develop a keen interest in cricket and started to organise, among themselves some internal friendly matches in 1976 and 1977. These proved to be popular and successful and, as a result of rapidly increasing interest, a ‘cricket group’ began to form.

Some of them read in the South Wales Echo about a local league known as the Cardiff Midweek Cricket League and they began to consider whether to enter a Post Office team. One day during the summer of 1977 Graeme and Dave were playing pitch and putt at Llandaff Fields and stopped to watch a league game nearby. They went to watch a few more games and convinced themselves – and their friends and colleagues at work - that they should ‘have a go’ and enter a team too.

They set about raising funds and, thanks to a grant from the Wales & The Marches Sports & Social Club and their own efforts, they were able to get together enough money to buy some kit and enter the Cardiff Midweek League. Going under the name of Post and Telecommunications HQ they played their first ever competitive game of cricket in Division 4 against Welsh Folk Museum in May 1978. 

Prior to that match it was became clear that it would not be possible to raise a full team so a youngster, Steve Davis, who had transferred from Bangor that week was ‘roped in’, but not even he could prevent the team being bowled out for 30, a defeat and a difficult debut season in the league, finishing bottom of the division, with just a single victory to its credit which, ironically, was against Nat West, who convincingly won the division and whose only defeat was in that game.

Nevertheless, enthusiasm remained high and the club was now ‘up and running’ to such an extent that they also decided to enter the annual Wales & Border Counties Post Office Cup competition, playing as Wales & The Marches Post & Telecommunications Sports & Social Club [arguably a contender for the shortest club name in the history of any sport.]

At that time there were a number of ‘sources’ for players, including engineering staff; transferees from other parts of Wales and the Marches; as well as staff at The Parade and Coryton, one of whom was a certain Graham ‘Joey’ Newbury. Some friends and relatives ‘joined in’ but primarily, in these early years, the club consisted of Wales & The Marches employees and colleagues in Post Office Telecommunications, which subsequently became British Telecom (BT) in 1981.

During this period, the club did not attempt to participate in many weekend friendly matches, choosing to concentrate very much on midweek league cricket.  However, the club did undertake its first ever tour in 1985 to Alderley Edge in Cheshire and played a match against colleagues and friends in the area.

However, this was the beginning of a period of change within the Post Office. Following its privatisation in the mid-80s British Telecom was effectively split from the Post Office and, as a result of staffing and structural changes, the Wales and The Marches Post Office was disbanded and its staff dispersed, with the consequent closure of its Sports & Social Club.

An entirely separate club, comprising mostly postmen at the main headquarters in Penarth Road, was already well established – known as Cardiff Post Office it was also playing in the Cardiff Midweek Cricket League and had financial support from its own Sports & Social Club on the site. With structural changes affecting many of the workers, the majority of the club that was to become the Cavaliers as we know it today were based at or connected to the Penarth Road HQ.

This enabled the club to draft in some newcomers and was grateful too for financial support but it came with some pressure to merge with the Cardiff Post Office club and become its unofficial 2^nd eleven. The club members, though, were keen to resist this notion and retain an identity of their own. To this end they were very grateful to receive an offer of sponsorship in the form of club clothing from Joey’s wife, who at the time was an air stewardess with Air Europe. In recognition of this the club was re-named as Inter European Airways, Air Europe’s ‘working’ title’ at that time in 1986.

A new name also signalled some early success, with the club finishing 3^rd and earning promotion back to Division 4 (having been ‘relegated’ in a technical re-alignment of the Midweek league as part of its expansion.) However, the club was now fighting a losing battle in its efforts to maintain its links with the Post Office in the face of strong competition for recruiting talent from the Cardiff Post Office club. In an effort to survive it began to bring in friends and others from outside and so, in 1988, there was yet another name change to Post Office Cavaliers in order to try to emphasise an entirely separate identity from the other team but to maintain some sort of link with its origins.

The next few years were mixed with hard work behind the scenes ensuring steady consolidation ‘on the field’ but further and inevitable weakening of links with the Post Office sports and social club, and this culminated in the ending – by mutual consent – of any financial support in the early 1990s.

Furthermore, the conditions for playing matches were rapidly deteriorating: outfields were often uncut for long periods, pitches poorly maintained and often dangerous, and there were sporadic but increasingly numerous instances of bad behaviour by some opposing teams. All of this was starting to have an effect on the enjoyment of the game and probably had a part to play in the difficulties the club was experiencing in maintaining enthusiasm and raising a full team, as well as the need to play two matches a week on many occasions.

In order to address both of these issues the Annual General Meeting of the club in 1995 took the momentous decisions to pull out of the Cardiff Midweek League and to change its name to Cardiff Cavaliers. The name change was to reflect the need for the club to become ‘open’ and the club applied successfully to join the Willow League that year to seek a more appropriate competitive environment and to play on private, and usually better, pitches and outfields, which its teams were encouraged to do. [Interestingly, the Willow League was also formed in 1978 and to celebrate both 30^th anniversaries the Cavaliers will play a Willow League Chairman’s XI on 17 July 2008.]

In its debut season the club achieved a mid-table finish and reached the Cup final, losing narrowly to Leisure & Amenities [later to become Oz Bar Wizards and now known as Cardiff Bay Barbarians] who also went on to become that year’s League champions.

Over the next few seasons the club performed respectably, usually finishing mid-table, but struggled to raise full teams and was entirely dependent upon a small, hard working group who were determined to keep the club alive. The club played its home games and many of its other league and cup fixtures at Caedelyn Park, off Ash Grove in Whitchurch. At its AGM in 1999 the decision was made to play at Llandaff Oval, a ground at the rear of the UWIC campus on Western Avenue which, at this time, was better maintained.

For a while the club continued to experience difficulties in raising teams and results suffered, leading to table-propping finishes in 1999, 2000 and 2001 but the members’ spirit and commitment meant it wouldn’t be long before it flourished again. Allied to better playing conditions and the creation of the its first ever web site new members started to join.

By 2003, and despite finishing bottom of the League again, the club reached its 2^nd Willow Cup Final and won its first ever piece of silverware in beating GST by 11 runs in a match that will long live in the memory of those who played for, and supported, the club on that dramatic night. Reaching the final was memorable as well with the club winning an earlier round in an unprecedented bowl-out by one hit to nil, the dead-eyed bowler being Mark Simpson.

The 2004 and 2005 seasons brought further success with the club winning the Willow Plate, a competition for teams finishing in 7^th place or below in the League proper. 2006 saw the launch of new web site under our own domain name [www.cardiffcavaliers.com] which, in just three years, has been a source not only of rich enjoyment and useful information but also a great source of attracting new members.

With concerns over the cost and, more importantly, the rapidly deteriorating quality of Llandaff Oval, the club sought out new arrangements and, when the opportunity presented itself in 2007, moved to The Bishop’s Field at the nearby Cathedral School.

That year saw the club post a notable achievement by finishing in the top half of the League and therefore qualify for the Willow Shield competition for the first time since the competition was introduced in 2001 for the top finishers in the League proper. It also reached its 3^rd Cup Final before having to give best to a classy South Glamorgan Education team. However, we ‘won’ the vocal bragging rights with 19 of the 23 spectators being club members (the rest being neutrals.)

In terms of other ‘honours’ the club has won, on several occasions, the ‘Ashes’ and the ‘C&H’ Trophy, which are separate annual series of matches against our old friends and adversaries from Chartered Trust CC and Highways Hurricanes CC respectively which have been held since the mid 1990s.  

Since joining the Willow League club members have grown in self-confidence and gained an increasing appetite for weekend friendlies against some of the more ‘established’ cricket clubs in and around South Wales and these games now form an integral part of the fixture list. The club’s reputation for its honesty, integrity, good sportsmanship and willingness to give opportunities to all, regardless of ability, has won universal respect and recognition throughout the local cricketing community and has been instrumental in helping it develop and maintain a rich portfolio of weekend venues and opponents.

Alongside these games, the Club has also had the confidence to organise annual tours and, after somewhat tentative efforts in the early 1990s, these are now keenly supported and will see 23 Cavaliers descend upon Amsterdam this August (2008) for a special 30^th anniversary tour.

It has always been an entirely voluntary organisation without ever having its own ground or anywhere that it could really call a ‘base’ apart from the very earliest times during the early Post Office years. It is, therefore, a testament to its reputation for espousing the competitive yet friendly spirit of the game of cricket that it continues to attract new members and has established an enviable fixture list. It is financed entirely by its members' subscriptions, match fees and surpluses generated from social activities and club clothing.

The club now has over 30 members and, in 2007, had to select a team for every one of its 47 fixtures, a far cry from the days of having to cancel games or rely on the opposition to bolster our numbers so that we could have 11 on the field.

Thanks to the work of the founder members – and many others behind the scenes over the years – the club has survived difficult times and now, with many of the newer members being youngsters, it gives the opportunity for all who love the game and the Cavalier ethos to ‘don the shirt’ for many more years to come and write the future chapters of this club’s rich and proud history.

------------------------------------------