The first women's team for the province of the province

2025 is a historic year for cricket for women and girls in Wales as a Glorphan Women's team for the first time. Their inaugural match and 50-overs friendly against Somerset-Zal will take place in Taunton next Friday, April 11, for their first home game in Sophia Gardens against Sussex on Saturday 19 April. (writes Andrew Hignell)

Both this summer and in 2026, the women's team will play in the Tier 2 matches under the supervision of the English and Wales Cricket Board before the Glorgan organ team is elevated in the Tier One tournaments for 2027. The team will be located in Sophia Gardenens, the home base of Glamorian organization. However, this is not the first time that a ladies team with the name Glorgan Organ Ladies, or South Wales women, has passed the field, albeit as a separate entity and not affiliated with the first-class club.

Just as in the evolution of men's cricket, members of aristocratic families were paramount in the development of the game in the nineteenth century with Violet Morgan, the granddaughter of Lord Tredegar and Constance Hill, the daughter of Sir Edward Stock Hill of Bokwood House in Llandaff. The success of these games, plus some brother or sister rivalry with her brothers who played for the Glorphan Men's team, led Constance in 1890 to organize a competition for a so-called Glorganese Ladies-Team to meet the East Gloucestershire Club on their land on Ryeworth Farm on September 24, 1890.

Violet, however, had to withdraw a few days before the game and on the day itself only seven of the selected team made the land in Charlton Kings. Constance therefore had to recruit four guests from the host club. Despite missing one of their most important players, Constance and her friends set up a tough version, leaving the Gloucestershire side with just fifteen minutes to score 34. Although Constance bowed for a lot, the winning runs were beaten just before the cut-off time when the home team won through ten wickets.

In the twentieth century, a group of enlightened teachers helped to spread the game, also at Howell's school in Llandaff. From the end of the 1920s, the list of schools contained an annual competition against an Old Hywelians team and the success of these competitions led a group of former students to create the South Wales Women's CC in 1936.

Howell's school together with Monmouth School for Girls and the South Wales Women's CC flew the flag for women's cricket in the post -war years with women's teams that also emerged at universities and schools in the Cardiff and Newport region. For a short time there were also teams in which the nurses were involved in the Wokwood Hospital in Cardiff, as well as the Service Women stationed in Wraf St. Athan in the Vale or Glorgan organ.

This post -war increase in the activity led to the founding in 1950 Women's County Cricket Association as a full -fledged branch of the western district of the Women's Association formed in 1926. The first Intercounty match took place on July 23, 1951, with Glamororgan bundles forces with Gloucestershire to play their counterparts through Hampshire and Dorset. The competition took place in Newbridge Fields in Bridgen, but ended in a heavy defeat for the Welsh Contingent with Hampshire and Dorset who stated on 214-6, before he turned the combined Glorphan and Gloucestershire side for only 48.

The CC and Glorphan Women's County Cricket Association of South Wales had stopped their activities in 1969 when the Welsh Cricket Association came into existence and then organized competitions for a Wales Women's team. Maar hun exploits worden nog steeds liefdevol herinnerd door hun deelnemers, waaronder Jill Matthews wiens recollecties te horen zijn in het Museum of Welsh Cricket's nieuwste podcast-klik hier om te luisteren https://audio.buzzsprout.com/hi1dgk6nus2QXY333TBM55YT7ZDSK?RESPONES- DISPOSITIONAW Baande At the museum by both Jill and Howell's school, and Sophia Smale, is also collected by the staff of the museum to celebrate the coming milestone in cricket for women and girls in Wales.