CARDIFFREMEMBERED New book takes a trip through history of Welsh handball

FORMER miner Kevin Dicks’ meticulous research for his book Handball: The Story of Wales’ First National Sport has thrown up a number of interesting stories relating to our beloved Cardiff.

For instance, some Cardiffians will remember the time when the Owain Glyndwr pub on the corner of John Street and Church Street was known as the Tennis Court.

I am certainly one of them, as my father took me there to have my very first pint when I was about 15.

We learn that in 1843, the innkeeper Andrews Powell died at the age of 101 and that his sisters Margaret and Susan, who also lived in the pub, died at the ages of 93 and 96 respectively.

We are also told all three were surpassed by their father William Powell who had kept the inn before Andrews and had resided there until his death at the age of 113.

Many Cardiffians will know the story of how Philip Evans, a Monmouthshire-born Jesuit priest, was condemned to death for treason during the fabricated Titus Oates plot. After being imprisoned at Cardiff Castle in 1679 he was hanged, drawn and quartered at the junction of City Road, Albany Road and Crwys Road – a place then known as Gallows Field.

But how many know that the Catholic martyr was engrossed in a game of handball when he received the news that he was to be executed but with great dignity he insisted on finishing his game?

In the Whitchurch area of Cardiff every Easter Monday and irrespective of age or status, every childless married woman was given two dozen tennis balls in the churchyard, one dozen of which were covered in white, and the others coloured with black leather.

The women then threw the tennis balls over the roof from the rear of the church to be scrambled for by the assembled populace at the front of the church.

Said to exist from time immemorial, this custom was strictly adhered to by the Whitchurch women, childbirth being the only exemption from its annual performance.

As for the Whitchurch men they “put their newly-acquired tennis balls to good use on Sunday afternoons throughout the summer playing handball matches on the west wall of Radyr Church against their Radyr and Llandaff rivals, with several onegallon flagons of beer on offer as the prize”.

The author, who is to be congratulated on such a well researched book, writes: “It is appropriate that this journey through the history of Welsh handball should end in the capital city and the home of the current national sport in Wales, as a short walk in Cardiff where traces of the old national sport are still visible, where to look.

“St John’s Church is the starting point, as the old ball game was played against the north side of the Tennis Court Inn until the Tennis Court Inn if one knows