William John Spiller (8 July 1886 – 9 June 1970), was a Welsh

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

player and cricketer. His greatest achievements were in rugby, where he won ten international caps at centre for

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

between 1910 and 1913, but his short

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is one of three or more days' scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officia ...

career was also notable as he was the first man to score a century for Glamorgan after their elevation to first-class status in the 1921 season. A right-handed batsman, he also made six appearances in the Minor Counties Championship for

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

Cricket career

Spiller was born in St Fagans, near

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

, and played minor cricket for Glamorgan from 1905 onwards, although as a police officer with the Glamorgan force he was unable to appear regularly for the club after 1908. He did, however, achieve much success in

club cricket Club cricket is a mainly amateur, but still formal, form of the sport of cricket, usually involving teams playing in competitions at weekends or in the evening. There is a great deal of variation in game format although the Laws of Cricket are obs ...

in the area, while in rugby he was part of the Wales team that in 1910-11 won the

Triple Crown Triple Crown may refer to: Sports Horse racing * Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing * Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (United States) ** Triple Crown Trophy ** Triple Crown Productions * Canadian Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing * Tri ...

, a feat they were not to achieve again for almost four decades. He scored a fine try on his Welsh debut against Scotland in 1910. In club rugby he played 184 games for

between 1905 and 1914'Cardiff Rugby Club History and Statistics 1876-1975' D.E. Davies (1975) and also played for

Pontypridd () ( colloquially: Ponty) is a town and a community in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Geography comprises the electoral wards of , Hawthorn, Pontypridd Town, 'Rhondda', Rhydyfelin Central/Ilan ( Rhydfelen), Trallwng ( Trallwn) and Treforest (). ...

. Spiller made his first-class cricket debut for Glamorgan in July 1921 against

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

Kidderminster Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it ha ...

, having gained two months' leave from his police job, and made respectable scores of 40 and 23. Throughout July and August Spiller played regularly for his county, and in late July he became the first Glamorgan batsman to reach three figures in the first-class game when he hit 104 in the second innings against

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, albeit in a match the Welsh county lost by 244 runs. That was to prove the high point of Spiller's cricketing career, and except for an innings of 58 against Sussex in August, he never again passed 30 in the first-class game. In 1921, his only significant season in first-class cricket, he finished with 378 runs from 11 matches at an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

of 21. He played a single first-class game in each of the next two seasons, and one further minor game for Durham in

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China holds ...

before retiring. Spiller died in St. Fagans, the village of his birth, a month short of his 84th birthday.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Spiller, Billy 1886 births 1970 deaths Glamorgan Police officers Cardiff RFC players Cricketers from Cardiff Glamorgan County RFC players Glamorgan cricketers Glamorgan Police RFC players Pontypridd RFC players Rugby union centres Rugby union players from Cardiff Wales international rugby union players Welsh cricketers Welsh police officers Welsh rugby union players