St Helen’s ArchivePreserving the past for the future
Two
Transcript:
This is part two in the five part audio trail following the story of the South African ‘Springboks’ tours to St Helen’s, Wales, and the UK. The previous part explored Swansea RFC’s win over the touring Springboks in 1912, and how that win was part of a much larger accolade, with Swansea being the first club side to defeat the ‘Big Three’. The following parts in this trail explore the further tours of South Africa, with this part looking to the next two: 1931-32 and 1951–52. Where possible, this trail will continue to look at the material legacy left behind, by these tours, in the St Helen’s archive.
For the first tour to be explored in this part, the archive does hold some action photos from the match played at St Helen’s, but they are not on display with the other items in this trail. Instead, a collage of eight are mounted and framed elsewhere at the grounds. The South African tour that came to St Helen’s, in 1931-32, did evidently play a game against Swansea RFC. This was the first rematch since the 3 to nil Swansea win nineteen years earlier, and it ended 3 to 10 to the Springboks in the third game of that tour, on the 10th of October 1931 in front of a crowd of forty thousand. The photographs themselves show a variety of mid-play actions, but this trail would focus on the photograph labelled PH272-H. This particular image shows Swansea forward Will Davies kick the ball out of play with some outstretched physicality. Held up by the South Africans, they close around him left of the image. The image is in black and white, although has faded to an unappealing yellow or amber in the years of display. Although restored versions are available on the archive website. Interestingly, also within the image, you can just about make out a more simple version of the springbok motif on the South African’s left breasts. The springbok itself is alone atop a trimmed shield. As can be seen later in this trail, this badge would go through some evolution as the years went on, evidenced in the jerseys later in this trail. Unlike many games to be explored in this trail and its sister trails however, unfortunately no jersey is currently in the collection from this match.
The tour as a whole for the Springboks was an immensely successful one. They played 26 matches, losing only one, and drawing two. The Welsh test match against the Springboks was also held at St Helen’s during this tour, a little later on the 5th of December 1931. That game ended 8 to 3, to the tourists.
The following tour two decades later, in 1951-52, continues to leave behind some material legacy. On display at St Helen’s today is both a match programme from this next Swansea v. South Africa game, but also a Springboks team photograph from that same match. The match was held on the 15th of December 1951 where the Springboks beat Swansea 11 to 3. But it was a much closer match than the score suggests with the teams standing at 3 to 3 with just seven minutes remaining. J K "Chum" Ochse scored in the corner and A "Okey" Geffen converted and added a huge penalty kick from half-way to give the final score. Both these objects on display at St Helen’s remind us of what could have been, a near second win over the Springboks sixteen years after Swansea had taken down New Zealand and claimed their momentous accolade. It was not to be, of course, the tourists truly had their most successful tour ever, only losing a single match against London Counties on the 10th of November…
To begin with the team photograph, in describing the objects themselves, it is a black and white photograph with the expected line up of players and officials. Each player is cross armed and, for the most part, stern in demeanour, the only exceptions being, front row in the picture P A Du Toit and D J Brewis, as well as F P Marais, who seem to be smiling playfully. Captain H Muller sits center in the second row. It appears as though the photograph was taken on the pitch, with the players positioned in their jerseys, which bore a large springbok motif, detailed and presumably colourful, on their left breasts. The photograph itself is mounted on a titled card, with the players' names listed in order underneath the words ‘Springboks, St Helen’s Swansea. Dec 1951’.
As for the match programme, it reminds us of the 2:30pm kick off of the match, but its cover is two-thirds taken up by the advertisement for Kenyon Refrigerating Engineers. Appropriately the relevant match information is in green, the Springbok colours and the programme itself bears small sketches of both team’s motifs, a small springbok head for South Africa and the Swansea castle badge for Swansea RFC.
In the Welsh trial match, played on 22nd of December 1951, the Springboks would take another win over the Welsh side. 6 - 3. Interestingly, Swansea and Wales player Len Blyth was supposed to have stepped down from the Swansea v. Springboks game just a week before the international but as Swansea captain, he wanted to represent the club and played regardless. An educated guess as to why might have been to avoid injury or exhaustion, an omen of sorts as to why these kinds of club fixtures (and this trail) would not go any further than 1994. But more on that later…
The next part in the trail covers a shorter span of time than this one, moving forward into the tours of the 1960’s. Please do follow on to find out more, and don’t forget to press next.