That's over! city's famous

AROUND 150 years of sporting history at St Helen’s - a ground where giants of cricket had their day in the sun - came to end at 6.42pm on a blustery August afternoon when a 15-year-old Olchfa School pupil, Jacob Pro-theroe, was clubbed for four by Owen Barton, a 42-year-old former solicitor.

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His boundary against the promising left-arm seamer sealed a win for Pontardawe Cricket Club's first team against hosts Swansea Cricket Club's second team in their final South Wales Cricket Association Division 3 match of the season.

The players shook hands, walked up the steps to the clubhouse and cricket at St Helen’s, as of August 31, was no more.

With regional rugby side the Ospreys set to redevelop the seaside ground into a rugby-only venue, the pitch where 57 years to the day West Indian all-rounder Sir Garfield Sobers had made history by hitting six sixes off an over is surplus to requirements.

Swansea CC vice-chairman and treasurer Steve Davies, whose involvement with the club began 44 years ago, said he he’d been trying not to dwell on the impending end as he knew he would become “a bit emotional”.