Ernie Lewis - War-time player?

Hi jp2013, a very warm welcome to the TFF, I'm sure our history boys might be able to come up with some information for you, so check back again over the next few days.

Very interesting!

We had a player called Lewis who played a six or seven War League games for us between September and November 1945 - at inside left or left wing.

He played at left wing in the first leg of our FA Cup tie with Newport on 17 November 1945 - which as far as I can tell was his last game for us.

Jack Rollin and Tony Brown's "The Forgotten FA Cup" attributes that appearance to DENNIS Lewis - who was to sign for us from Swansea in August 1947 and went on to set a club appearance record. This is almost certainly wrong.

The Lewis who played for Torquay in 1945/46 was referred to as a Welsh amateur international who had been playing as a professional for the Irish side Newry Town.

I relayed this information to the powers that be (messrs Brown and Rollin and Michael Joyce who wrote "Football League Players' Records 1888 to 1939") and consensus was this must be David Bryn (known as Bryn) Lewis - born in Tonypandy 16/5/1913. He had, according to Joyce's book, been at Torquay on trial in 1937/38, played one league game on the left wing for Rochdale in 1938-39 and then joined Newry Town. Not 100% proof, but a load of evidence to point that way.

Frustratingly, none of the contemporary local reports seem to give a christian name or even an initial to "Lewis" to solve it for definite.

Any info you have on "Ernie" and any references to his playing for Torquay would be gratefully received as i would love to crack this one for certain. Do you know if Ernie was a Welsh amateur international?

They've already rewritten the record books changing Dennis to Bryn. Do they need to change them again to Ernie?

Yes I've got him down at number 10 for that game. Do you have access to programmes from that season? Very interesting.

It's difficult to be 100% certain on line-ups as they often changed at the last minute due to travel problems.

The games I think Lewis played (with shirt number) are as below. All Regional League except Newport:

08/09/45 A v Cardiff City 10
12/09/45 H v Bournemouth 10
15/09/45 H v Cardiff City 10
17/09/45 A v Bristol Rovers 8
22/09/45 H v Swindon Town 11
03/11/45 A v Bristol City 11
10/11/45 H v Bristol City 10
17/11/45 H v Newport County 11

Thanks all, this is all terrific stuff, and I think we may well need to re-assess the information we have on Ernie Lewis on our side as well.

At the moment, we have no record of our Ernie Lewis playing at any kind of international level.

There was another Ernie Lewis (!) who played for us briefly in the mid-late 1920s, but no other research has been done on him, so I couldn't tell you if he went on to other things such as amateur caps.

Unfortunately, all I have to go on at the moment is Ernie re-joined Barry after the War from Torquay United - and that's about that. However, I haven't seen that primary source info for my own eyes, so that's probably worth re-visiting at some point to clarify the matter.

I've got Barry Town's club historian, Jeff, writing an article on Ernie, so I'd be more than happy (with Jeff's permission) to relay that to you here once it's finished.

As for you getting the League place over Aberdare, after they themselves finished 2nd to us in the 1921-22 Southern League section... Well, a few of us have long pondered this.

Football had been played in Barry since the town arrived with a bang in the 1880s. The biggest club was Barry District (which for a time was known as Barry Unionist). It was a big club in the area at the time and won a few trophies here and there.

However, as soon as Cardiff City started to get itself together (it's forerunner was only a minor name in local football at the time), football lovers in Barry felt we needed a new direction, which is why the current club, Barry Town, was formed in time for the 1913-14 Southern League season.

Barry AFC ('Town' was added unofficially in the 20s) was very much of its time, and in the rush to be part of the Southern League, Barry were successful (along with a few other Welsh valleys clubs at the time).

It's hard to think now when you see the likes of Cardiff City in the Championship and Swansea City in the Premier League that 100 years ago we were all very much local rivals.

But to 1921!

Unfortunately for Barry, it was 'finance' that stopped them getting that important step up to the English Football League for the 1922-23 season, and as you know Aberdare got the nod over us because of a better cash flow.

Yet, despite everything, and despite us a few times stating we should be in the English League, we never made that leap - but crucially, we never went bust either. Famous local clubs such as Merthyr Town and Ton Pentre, as well as Aberdare, went to the wall. The irony is, we got turned away from League football as we were seen as unsustainable yet we were one of the very very few Welsh teams to retain its identity through the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. Was this BECAUSE we didn't get promotion and over extend ourselves? It's the great unanswerable.

As an aside - the name of Aberdare has been resurrected in time for the 1912-13 season and currently play in our division of the Welsh League. Previously known as Aberaman, they've opted to re-brand themselves as Aberdare and play in the colours Aberdare wore when in the English League.

Even further aside - how did you get on with Eifion Williams back in the day? The guy was a legend in these parts, and his goal scoring exploits were phenomenal (at our level).

Anyway, we'll crack on with this Ernie Lewis stuff.

Thanks everybody

Jason

Eifion was great, one of my heroes growing up. Scored at hat-trick on his debut for us against Hartlepool and was a consistent goal scorer over the next couple of years before moving on to Hartlepool where he was also very popular. Could do with a player like him now

As a casual observer of the League of Wales in the late 90s/early 2000s, I've found Barry's slump quite sad. It's funny because I think a lot of people were a bit bored by the big-spending and the dominance of the LoW after the Barri Dragons period in exile, and then when they fell, they were just replaced by another team doing much the same, only they were from the north instead of the south and play in green rather than yellow

Many thanks Jon for the help you have given on this thread so far, I will look forward to any further updates.

Do you want this thread moved into our history room?