Lewis a driving force for beloved Wales

Martin Johnson, The Telegraph, 4 November 2000

IT is quite some time now since we watched Tony Lewis introducing cricket on the BBC with that trademark "lovely day here at Lord's" welcome of his - a comfy armchair delivery which never varied whether England were about to resume on 200 for nought or 35 for eight.

His regular Sunday newspaper column is also a distant memory, though the public perception that he must have retired to some rocking chair in the pavilion is about as wide of the mark as one of Devon Malcolm's looseners.

Beneath that laid-back exterior (as live television viewers once discovered when an exasperated expletive indicated that he was experiencing a far-from-lovely day) lies a man of considerable passion and energy, and after spells as chairman of the Welsh Tourist Board and president of MCC, Lewis is currently pouring his soul into Wales's bid to host the 2009 Ryder Cup.

The closing submissions went in this week ahead of the final decision in January, and while Scotland are thought to be leaders in the clubhouse, one of the major prerequisites of the bid document - namely, the development of golf throughout the host nation - appears through Welsh eyes at any rate to make a Scottish Ryder Cup award the equivalent of dispatching a consignment of refrigerators to Iceland.

If you take away four Open venues, a permanent home for the Dunhill Cup, the rising profile of Loch Lomond, new championship links at St Andrews and Turnberry, and more than enough courses to cope with the daily avalanche of cigar butts from American tourist pilgrimages, then Scotland truly is an impoverished golfing nation, and Lewis is passionate in his belief that the Ryder Cup is Wales's only chance of raising its profile to anything approaching that of its Celtic cousins.

"Wales lacks the established golfing image enjoyed by the likes of Scotland and Ireland," he said, "and we do not attract golfing tourists in anything like the same quantity. However, with the recent influx of European economic development funding, and statistics pointing to the game in Wales being more popular with youngsters than even rugby, the Ryder Cup will help us develop golf to an unprecedented level."

Welsh ambitions in this area have been further fuelled by the philanthropy of a Newport-born billionaire, though the money that has already made Terry Matthews's Celtic Manor resort make the Old Course Hotel resemble something the size of a halfway-house sausage hut (if it rained, they could almost stage the Ryder Cup indoors) is also perceived as a mark against them.

The argument that previous venues have been 'bought' rather than earned is an emotive one, and you'd have to be a sand wedge short of a full set to present the case for the K Club (venue for 2005) being the best course in Ireland. Valderrama would be pretty high on anyone's list as the worst spectator course in Europe, and the Belfry (where the PGA offices were provided for them by its owners, De Vere Hotels) has only recently been upgraded (and comprehensively so) from a barely suitable venue for the Birmingham and District monthly medal.

However, while Celtic Manor's money is inextricably connected to the Welsh bid, the Ryder Cup committee's own stipulations make it the logical venue - if a long way from being the best golf course - for an event that is slightly different to the one Dai Rees used to play in. They are less concerned about whether Tiger Woods can drive all the par-fours than whether he can get a swanky enough room for the night, and the requirement that 5,000 'quality' hotel beds must be available within a Woods five-iron of the first tee, immediately rules out established masterpieces such as Royal Porthcawl.

Lewis is a member there, though his own golf is currently on hold while he waits for an operation on a right knee which has given him problems since he damaged it playing full-back for Cambridge in the 1959 University rugby match. His wife, Joan, is the Porthcawl lady captain, who may or may not have been the inspiration behind the fictional character he created years ago in his newspaper column.

"Ah yes, Mrs Gruffydd-Williams," he recalls with obvious affection. "The daughter of a Ceylon tea-planter, who owned a flat in Belgravia, held debentures at Cardiff Arms Park, and became lady captain of a golf club in the foothills of the Rhondda. I did about 30 essays on her over the years, and I'm happy to say I'm about to resurrect her in one of two books I've got planned at the moment.

"It's the writing that's been neglected during my time with the Tourist Board and MCC, but it's been a question of trying to find the time. I miss journalism badly. The other book will be based around autobiographical essays, which I hope will be fun. There are the MCC experiences to draw upon obviously, and just about everything from doing National Service to getting a first-baller from Brian Crump at St Helen's."

Lewis's career since leaving Neath Grammar School 40-odd years ago should not leave him short of anecdotal material, and the MCC stuff should prove interesting, even though he does not subscribe to the broad perception of the minimum requirement for membership being a hereditary title and/or a degree in doddering old bufferdom.

"For one thing," Lewis said, "MCC members are drawn from all walks of life, from dukes to out-of-work actors, and it is a club with amazing potential for keeping the spirit of the game going. Take this gambling business. If ever there was a need for a stand-aside authority to oversee the game's values, it is now."

Lewis's own career was played in an era when bribery and corruption would have been far more of a shock than today, though while the thought of fixing a match was inconceivable in his day, he does confess to once throwing a prize. "It was in my first Test in India on the 1972-73 tour when the man-of-the-match award was a roll of sari material. If I'm guilty," he chuckled, "of giving it to the first available passer-by, then I have to hold my hands up."

That five-month tour, which he captained, holds - like so many cricketing trips to the subcontinent - a wealth of memories, not least because the MCC team, as they used to be known, were charged with a much greater ambassadorial role (High Commission receptions, black-tie dinners, etc) than the England teams of today.

"When I went back to India as a writer, I saw the players retiring to the top floor of their hotel with videos and room service, but we were much more socially orientated, especially in our relationship with the media, and I really enjoyed sitting down to dinner with the various journalists.

"I did have one minor fall-out when Crawford White of the Daily Express knocked on my hotel-room door one evening as I was taking a bath. After my man-of-the-match in the first Test, I'd failed in the second, and Crawford said: 'Are you thinking of standing down for the next one, skipper?' My reply was pretty unprintable.

"Illness was the constant problem then in India, and I got so sick just before the Calcutta Test that I had to be helped to my room by a security guard. Just before I could lay down to die, he asked me for my autograph, and then insisted, after I'd signed, that I added 'MCC captain' underneath the signature.

"Anyhow, I recovered well enough to play in the Test, and after the first day Jim Swanton came to my room. 'I really have to make a small objection, captain,' he said. 'I sat next to a fellow in the press box today who had no implements of the trade with him, and was obliged to ask how he had gained entry. He then produced a card upon which was written: Admit One to Press Box . . . signed, Tony Lewis, MCC captain.' So you have to give that security guard 10 out of 10 for resourcefulness."

Lewis has great admiration for the way cricket is presented on television now, but towards the end of his time on the BBC, he said, the job was more or less killed off. "We wouldn't come on air until five minutes before the start, which left me just enough time to say: 'Lovely day here at Old Trafford, now over to Moira Stewart in the BBC newsroom'." It was, incidentally, Moira Stewart to whom Lewis handed over with the (unbeknown to him, on-air) expletive.

A private oath or two may also be muttered if Wales fail in their Ryder Cup bid. "I was involved in the rugby World Cup here as chairman of the Tourist Board, but I can honestly say I've never felt so much excitement for anything. The whole country is behind it, and while I confess to a certain emotional bias, the nation needs it."