St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
Five
Transcript:
This is part five in the nine part audio trial following the career of Mervyn Davies. As explored in the first part of this trail, Mervyn moved to London for his work as a primary school teacher, which gave him an opportunity to play rugby football with the ‘Exiles’, the London Welsh. Mervyn however was born in Swansea, attended Penlan county school, and so following on from the Welsh player dominated Lions tour, and the Welsh celebration game for Urdd Gobaith Cymru, it seems only fitting that Mervyn made his way to Swansea RFC in this homecoming.
In two seasons between 1972 and 1974, Mervyn played in 53 games for Swansea, winning 36 of them, and scoring 11 tries. He was most successful in his first season, 72-73, but played fewer games as the years went on.
Mervyn Davies’ second season with Swansea RFC, 1973-74, was the club's rugby centenary season. This specific jersey, that occupies its place here as a representation of Mervyn’s time at Swansea wholly, is the specially made jersey for this milestone season. The jersey itself is blue, maroon and white hooped. It has a white collar, and the red cloth number eight on the back is atop a white rectangle. The badge on the left breast is on a white fabric backing, has a maroon border, and shows the osprey motif first selected this season to represent Swansea RFC. The Osprey motif was adopted as then club Chairman Viv Davies explained: "because of its speed, grace, commitment and beauty in flight." The motif was designed by the famous Welsh artist Vincent Vicari, specifically for the Swansea club’s celebratory season. The osprey bird would go on to be chosen to represent the modern Ospreys Regional team in 2003, although this 1973 badge bears a mostly realistic depiction of the bird over the stylised one we see today on Swansea jerseys.
This centenary season would see Swansea RFC play against Fiji, a Romanian club CFR Constanta, Ponsonby from New Zealand, Australia and a Welsh Rugby Union President's XV, all at St Helens.The results would be mixed, a loss to Fiji, a draw with Australia, but a win against Ponsonby and the WRU’s President’s XV. Australia drew the game in the dying seconds of added time with a long range penalty to rob Swansea of their third win over the wallabies. This would come in 1992 – although another trail highlights this achievement. Interestingly for Mervyn Davies, Swansea RFC would also play against the London Welsh twice that season, once in December and again in April - both of which resulted in wins. All in all, Swansea would come out of their milestone season as Merit Table Champions: that is to say, Welsh Champions in the ‘unofficial league table’ of the amateur era of rugby.
The next part of the trail will explore the second of Mervyn Davies’ British and Irish Lions tours in South Africa in 1974. Surrounded by the controversy of apartheid, and the epic and sometimes violent encounters with the Springboks team, this tour could easily have been said to have been controversial. As well as this, the following part will also speak of Mervyn’s following and final two seasons at Swansea RFC. Please do follow on to find out more. Please don’t forget to press next.