The Dream That Died: Gwilym Rowland and Welsh Cricket

By Andrew Hignell

What links Wales playing first-class cricket during the 1920s, Denbighshire entering the Minor County Championship in 1930 and the visit to the UK by a team from Germany?

The answer is Gwilym Evans Rowland, a Manchester-born businessman who tried to raise the profile of cricket in Wales by creating a team which played home internationals against Scotland and Ireland and appeared at Lord’s.

Based in North Wales, Gwilym ruffled feathers at Glamorgan CCC, but paid for matches played by the Wales team and the all-amateur Welsh Cygnets, and the visit by the United Berlin team in 1930. He funded similar footballing activities, but during 1931/32 his business conglomerate collapsed and went into liquidation.

Drawing extensively on Rowland’s private papers, this book tells the story of his dreams for Welsh sport and his roller-coaster business career prior to ending a penniless man in Anglesey whose body was found in a ditch in 1938.