In memoriam – Dai Love

Pontypridd RFC has been informed of the passing of another of the great players from our past and a Life Member of the club, David ‘Dai’ Love. Dai was our oldest surviving player, having started his career way back in the years immediately following the Second World War. The first record we have of his turning out for Pontypridd was away at Maesteg on 29 November 1947, and he appears in the team photograph from the 1947-48 season.

Our records for this period are practically non-existent, however, and newspaper reports at the time only mentioned the scorers, and these rarely included anybody who played in the forwards! Dai was a second row forward and occasional back row forward, and was quite a big man for his time, but he rarely got on the scoresheet.

So, it is more than possible that he began his career even earlier than 1947. His entry on the ‘300’ Board in the clubhouse tells us that he started in 1946 and he certainly played well over three hundred games for the club, scoring 16 tries. His career went on until 1957, when he played his last game, against Bridgend, on 7 December of that year.

Dai attended most home games until very recently, although he was well into his nineties. For a long time he was part of the volunteer crew who turned up most mornings during the week, ostensibly to do tidying-up and repair jobs around the ground, but mainly to have a cup of tea under the stand and have a natter about the old days. He was a quiet, unassuming man, always with a smile on his face, and will be greatly missed by all of us who knew him. Pontypridd RFC extends its sympathy to his son David and to all his family.

Alun Granfield