TO celebrate Abergavenny CC's 175th anniversary year the Chronicle are featuring a series of articles compiled by Paul Sussex which celebrate the characters who have graced the town's adventures in bat and ball throughout the centuries.
This week GUY (G.N.) O' DALY (1908 - 1991) is the cricketer in the spotlight.
GUY Nolan O'Daly was born on September 4 1908 in Bramley, Hampshire.
The son of an Irish Doctor, he joined Abergavenny at the end of 1935 season and had an immediate impact in the final game of that season for the Thursday X1, where he scored a hundred against Newport Thursday X1.
His 109 included 17 fours and two sixes and he took several wickets. His brilliant cricket was to galvanise the club for the next few years.
He had a very short first class career. Playing just one match for Glamorgan against Cambridge University at Swansea in 1938, he injured himself after bowling just seven overs.
He had previously played for Glamorgan's Second X1 in 1936. In a match against Middlesex Second X1 at Arden Field in Finchley on May 20 and 21 of that year, one of his opponents was none other than DCS Compton who had just joined Middlesex as an 18 year old.
He was a right handed batsman and right arm medium pace bowler.
From 1935 and for much of the following five years O'Daly dominated the local cricket scene. He passed like a meteor across the sky outshining his contemporaries by his incomparable talents as a batsman and bowler.
In 1937 he made 1171 runs and took 138 wickets at an average of 9.00 - beating all club records. The feat of scoring a thousand runs in a season was not repeated until 1947.
O'Daly was an inspiration to colleagues and a great attraction to spectators. He also probably had an influence on the upturn in Club Membership which almost trebled during this period.
In 1937 Guy O'Daly was invited to join another club but the committee persuaded him to accept the post of coach and groundsman thus retaining him for a few more years.
He died on September 29, 1991 aged 83 years in Basingstoke, Hampshire.