This is the fourth in an occasional series on players who have represented both Yorkshire and at least one other county but not including overseas cricketers. Paul Dyson looks at the six cricketers who played for the White Rose county as well as Glamorgan. They occur in chronological order, within each county’s section, and the focus is on each player’s career with Glamorgan, their time with Yorkshire being detailed in various publications.
William Bates, also known as Eddie, left Yorkshire after the 1913 season and became professional for Briton Ferry Steel for the final season prior to the First World War. This enabled him to qualify for Glamorgan and he played for it in the Minor Counties Championship in 1920 before it became a first-class county in the following season. He had a total of 11 seasons with the county as a very reliable opening batsman, scoring over 1,000 runs in the 1923 season for the first of seven occasions. Four years later he became the first Glamorgan batsman to score two centuries in a match – against Essex at Leyton – and this occurred in what was his best season, his 1,692 runs including a career-best 200 not out against Worcestershire at Kidderminster. In 1928 Bates was joined at the top of the order by fellow-Yorkshireman Arnold Dyson and two years later the pair enjoyed scoring 233 together against, and inside, their native county at Sheffield. Essex also suffered when he achieved his best bowling an analysis of eight for 93 against it, again at Leyton. He was awarded a benefit for the 1930 season but, despite again scoring over 1,000 runs in the following season his services were dispensed with and he left the first-class game at the age of 47. In 283 matches for Glamorgan he had scored 12,600 runs, including ten centuries, and taken 224 wickets.
In a career which ran almost parallel with that of Bates, John Bell moved from Yorkshire to Glamorgan for the 1924 season and also left after 1931 due to the financial constraints which were being felt not just in Wales but world-wide. Also like Bates, he was an opening batsman, correct and solid, and was a regular in the county team from 1926 onwards, four times scoring over 1,000 runs in a season, three of these totals being over 1,600. His best season came in 1929 when he scored 1,701 runs but both his double-centuries came earlier in his career, the higher coming against Worcestershire at Dudley in 1926. In his total of 166 matches he scored 7,323 runs, including ten centuries. On his release he returned to Yorkshire to play in league cricket.
