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Vaughan wears the gloves for Fishguard Cricket Club
Vaughan Davies is a promising young wicket-keeper/batsman with Fishguard and Goodwick, and is looking forward to returning to rugby action in the town’s team once a recently-broken leg mends and he can return to the 100% approach that is very much part of his make-up.
He certainly can be heard on a cricket pitch because as wicket-keeper he fulfils the role of encouraging his team mates to give total commitment and keep focussed since he took on the role purely by chance when he took part in a game of Kwik Kricket in the sports hall at Ysgol Bro Gwaun in Fishguard and stood behind the stumps to field because he wasn’t quite sure where to go. He took the ball cleanly enough to have his pal Charles George persuading him to go for a training session with Fishguard and Goodwick’s under 13 side – and in the intervening four years he has really enjoyed taking part and learning the game alongside experienced players like Nigel Morgan, Dave Haynes, Gary Strawbridge and Russell Jones.
Quick learner
At first he didn’t even know the various fielding positions and was puzzled when he was told to bring his pants along – and it was only when he played his first game that he realised the pants would be used to keep the ‘box’ or groin protector comfortably in place!
Since then he has moved through from the second team to assume the wicket-keeper’s role in the first team and as well as his glove work he has also worked hard at his batting – and it is beginning to pay off because when he helped Fishguard Youth to victory in the Ormond Plate Competition Final at Lawrenny at the end of last season he scored 35 runs in the first innings and 27 runs in the second innings.
Ormond Cup involvement
He had previously played in the Pembrokeshire Schools’ Cup Final but came up against a very strong Greenhill School team in which Tom Davies (Carew) was the star and helped the Tenby School to victory. Vaughan had also played in the previous season’s Ormond Youth Cup Final when they went in as underdogs in the final against Whitland and although they lost Vaughan and Co pushed Whitland all the way. They had hoped for a repeat performance in the 2009 Ormond Cup competition but lost in the first round against Crymych, after scoring 120 and getting rid of Crymych’s top player, Osian Wyn, in the first over. But Iolo Thomas crashed the ball all over the field to help Crymych cause an upset in a match where Vaughan was unable to play because he was completing a Duke of Edinburgh outward-bound course in Rhayader and got back just in time to see his team-mates lose!
Other Sports and pastimes
Vaughan enjoys most sports and used to play as a goalkeeper for Letterston, Goodwick and Clarbeston Road, where Steve Brown was a good coach. When he was playing for Letterston there were two keepers and when they played Solva, Vaughan played the first half between the sticks, handed over the keeper’s shirt at the interval and played up front for the second period – and was delighted to claim a hat-trick!
He also plays golf at Priskilly with school friends Sam Kurtz and Matthew Harries but hasn’t put in a card yet and so doesn’t have a set handicap – but reckons that if he plays at his best he could play off a handicap of about 24.
Outside of his sport, Vaughan takes part in all the school productions, including the ‘Wizard of Oz’ and ‘The Mikado’, sings in a choir, is a useful musician – and in the recent snows joined younger brother Carwyn in practising the luge on the slopes at their Mount Pleasant Farm, using fertiliser bags as their luge!
Keen rugby player
But it was rugby that was always Vaughan’s No 1 sport as he played prop for the school and the local club in Fishguard, able to play loose head or tight head and enjoying the hurly-burly of the front row. In school he played at every age level under the coaching of teachers Emyr Hughes and Meinir Walsh, who has organised a tour to Barbados for the school’s first team. Although Vaughan is unable to play because of his leg injury he is still joining the tour as mum Gillian laughingly says he is,
“The most expensive water boy in the history of the game!”
Gillian and Vaughan’s father Haydn are great supporters, along with older brother Hywel and Carwyn, who are excellent musicians to complete the family tradition.
At club level, Vaughan played for the Seagulls with Lyn Harries as his coach throughout, except for the under 16s, when Fishguard couldn’t manage to raise a side so he joined Haverfordwest and was coached by Steve Parry and Steve O’Leary. Last season Vaughan was delighted to be chosen as captain of a very young Fishguard Youth team and he says that he left the pre-match dressing room ‘pep talk’ to his pal Sam Kurtz but always tried to lead by example once the whistle blew. He really misses being out on the pitch but hopes that after another operation in the future he will be able to return to action with the Seagulls.
Back to cricket
In the meanwhile, Vaughan is already looking forward to playing for Fishguard in the indoor cricket league and then onto the summer so that can get behind the stumps again. His best haul of ‘victims’ so far is four stumpings during a match and his most unusual dismissal came when a ball beat the batsman in Crymych, hit Vaughan on the helmet and dropped on to the stumps so that the batsman was given out ‘stumped’, to his evident dismay!
Ask Vaughan about the future and he says that he is more than happy to play both cricket and rugby for Fishguard and although college looms in the next few years he will still look forward to playing whenever he can – and will give total commitment in both sports because that is the only way that this modest and likeable young man can play!
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