Uplands v Illts

Back in October, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his captaincy, I posted a photo of my father playing for the Old Illtydians in the 1956/57 season.

This prompted Chris to post a contemporaneous picture of his Dad helping to dig the foundations for Swansea Uplands RFC.

We've now found out that these days the clubs are on each other's fixture list and that we could have gone to see them play in the first game of the year back in August.

I'll be back in Wales later today, so I'll try and find out the result.

Since I found out the that the Swansea club enlisted en-mass forming a “sportsman’s platoon” in 5th Battalion The Welch Regiment in 1939, I have considered them an august and venerable body of men.

I'm sure that there is a wealth of social history to be discovered in the stories of Welsh rugby clubs.

Here, for exampe, is the legend of the CIACS.