The Winter’s Tale

The Winter’s Tale

It has not been a good winter so far for Welsh rugby, with teams marooned in South Africa and early exits for our regional sides in the European competitions. Things have been little better in the semi-professional game, with the pandemic playing havoc with fixture lists. We didn’t start the season until 18th September and have now lost six weeks of rugby due to the Welsh Government’s decision to shut Wales down again two weeks before Christmas.

Almost two years ago, when the pandemic started, I wrote a piece on a previous occasion when a killer disease was on the loose in South Wales. In January 1962 a smallpox epidemic was raging, and the outbreak caused the cancellation of the international game against Ireland, due to be played in Dublin on 10th March. Pontypridd RFC managed to play on throughout the epidemic, although with little success. The club secretary commented that “a factor in this season’s performance was the smallpox epidemic, which hit the valleys and had an unsettling effect on the team.” A masterly understatement!

However, it has been the weather rather than disease that has proved to have a much more damaging effect on rugby in the winter, with rain, snow and ice often disrupting the game. The worst winter was that of 1947. Between January and March that year, snow fell every day somewhere in the country for 55 days, with snowdrifts up to seven metres deep. Night-time temperatures plunged, with a low of -21 °C in some places in February, and March brought strong gales, with more heavy snowstorms. On 4th January 1947 Ponty played away at Newbridge, and then rugby came to a halt. We did not play again until 22nd March, eleven weeks later, away at Ebbw Vale, and didn’t play any games at home between 28th December 1946 and 7th April 1947.

The next very bad year was 1963, with temperatures so cold that the sea froze in places. It was even colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740. The first snow reached South Wales on Boxing Day 1962, and a blizzard followed on 29th and 30th December across Wales and south-west England, causing snowdrifts up to 6 m deep. Roads and railways were blocked, telephone lines brought down, and some places were cut off for days.

Pontypridd played Bridgend at Ynysangharad Park on 15th December 1962, and then didn’t play another game until 9th March, twelve weeks later. Ponty, under captain Eddie Jones, was doing well in the Welsh club championship at the time and were second in the unofficial table. We needed to win the last three games of the season, to be played in five days, to claim the Championship. Tredegar and Penarth were easily disposed of, and the final game was against Cross Keys, who had just beaten Newport and Cardiff. We won by nine points to nil and were the Welsh club champions for the first time in our history.

So, despite the weather, our Winter’s Tale in 1963 came to a very happy ending.

Alun Granfield