Billy Spiller

Spiller was born in St Fagans, near Cardiff, 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 in the area, while in rugby he was part of the Wales team that in 1910-11 won the Triple Crown, 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.^[2] In club rugby he played 184 games for Cardiff between 1905 and 1914^[3] and also played for Pontypridd.

Spiller made his first-class cricket debut for Glamorgan in July 1921 against Worcestershire at Kidderminster, 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, 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 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 before retiring.

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

• Billy Spiller at ESPNcricinfo
• Billy Spiller at CricketArchive (subscription required)