This outstanding blog was written by Steve Adams at the south Wales Guardian, who is also writing some good Garnant based stuff at www.murderatthestar.wordpress.com which covers the unsolved murder at the Star Stores Arcade Terrace a hundred years ago. Follow Steve on twitter @steveads1970

The Amman Valley derby was always a brutal bloody affair stoked to boiling point by simmering feuds, neighbourly rivalries and bellies filled to bursting with booze and bitter hatred.

Meetings between the valley’s two premier rugby sides – Amman United and Ammanford – were a major event for both communities which hundreds flocked to witness and where the anger and frustrations of a working week spent toiling at the coal-face spilled into enmity both on and off the field. The coming together of the sides on the afternoon of Saturday, February 12, was no different.

The fixture saw one of the largest crowds ever to gather at Cwmaman Park on the border of the twin villages of Garnant and Glanaman, whose sportsmen combined to form United. Hundreds made the five-mile journey east from Ammanford in buses, charabancs and on foot to converge in beer-fuelled expectation.

With the rugby season drawing to a close, the fixture was to be the third and final meeting between the sides during the 1920/21 campaign and the expectation amid even the most ardent of the visiting faithful was of a comfortable home victory: United possessed superior guile, skill and strength and were sure to put one over on the visitors from the small town just along the valley road.

United, or The Amman as they were known, had crushed the visitors underfoot when the two sides met at Cwmaman Park early in the season and the odds were firmly stacked in their favour once again. Ammanford had claimed an unlikely draw when the old rivals had come together on their own patch just a few weeks earlier, but the result was nothing but a blip – a lucky result on home turf. This latest fixture would restore the natural order and Ammanford and their fans would be sent whimpering back down the valley with tails fixed firmly between their legs.

There was however one chink of light in the Amman’s armour, and it came in the form of their greatest player. William ‘Billo’ Rees was the valley’s stand-out player of his generation. At outside-half he was a master in the role of lynchpin between the Amman’s battling, bruising all-powerful front eight and their athletic backs.

Billo was in rugby terms the midfield general; the visionary, fleet of foot and mind, dictating play and controlling possession from the centre of the park. Through him the Amman played their game and outscored all comers.

Such was Billo’s prowess with a leather oval ball in his hands that his talent had not gone unnoticed further up the Welsh rugby pyramid. In the years to come he would move north and pocket the silver pieces offered by the Rugby League of northern England, but even while he was still immersed in the union code of south Wales his fame had spread.

On the day Ammanford and their masses rolled up at Cwmaman Park, Billo Rees had been selected to play for Swansea at the highest level of the Welsh amateur game.

These were the days – at least officially – before a penny changed hands in the principality for pulling on a jersey on a Saturday afternoon.

Though financial reward was not on offer – at least none that any would admit, still the major clubs were able to entice the shining lights from lower down the food-chain. For smaller clubs like Ammanford and the Amman, seeing their players link arms with the nation’s best brought its own prestige.

The permit that was requested by Swansea though, was for once not met with favour amongst all Amman fans, and a controversy raged amongst the home support.

Some labelled Rees a Judas, claiming he was turning his back on his own and that though illegal, money was surely behind it.

When Ammanford arrived at Cwmaman Park and their followers filled the pubs of Garnant and Glanamman in preparation for the game, there was hope. Small hope indeed, but without Billo Rees to orchestrate their superior forces, the Amman would not be at their best.

As the drinkers, home and away alike, weaved their way with bellies stretched with ale and whisky on their breath through the crisp spring afternoon to the park tempers flared. Old rivalries from pub, pithead and pitch stirred and jostled amongst the crowds of barging shoulders, pointed elbows and on occasion, flailing fists. Along the way, Police Sergeant Thomas Richards and Constable David Thomas did what they could to uphold order, through mere visible presence more than hands-on policing.

When the groups of supporters finally arrived at the ground the rumour spread like a wildfire, erupting into cheers amongst the home fans and fury through the visiting ranks.

As impossible to believe as it seemed, the word was being spread that Billo Rees had turned down the request from Swansea and instead opted to spend that Saturday with the Amman.

He had chosen to turn his back on greatness – or at least decided to delay it – to help crush the bitterest rivals of his community underfoot.

Rees had rejected the chance to tread upon the greater stage and opted instead to ensure his home side smashed the hearts of Ammanford in what seemed a petty, bitter, spiteful choice.

The decision, to the travelling fans’ eyes at least, seemed like a betrayal. It was a betrayal of the very notion of sportsmanship. That the Amman had persuaded their shining light to reject the dreams to which all those who followed the amateur game aspired was beyond redemption.

The anger swelled around Cwmaman Park like a torrent and shoves and pushes spilled over into punches, kicks and fights. “The fat was properly in the fire,” said Sentinel, the Amman Valley Chronicle’s rugby correspondent.

For the players of Ammanford, the Billo Rees controversy brought far greater, more immediate problems.

They knew that whatever the bitter atmosphere amongst the crowds that pressed tight and 30 deep around the touchlines, they would have to face him and somehow suppress him.

To a man, they all knew without a doubt, that Billo’s talent far surpassed their own, his speed of thought, vision and awareness of the field around him would leave them floundering in the mud as the Amman raced out of sight to yet another victory.

They knew also that such was his guile, agility and understanding that they would be lucky to ever find themselves within an arm’s reach of him. The genius that was Billo Rees was simply head and shoulders above them all and far too good for any to ever lay an off-the-ball punch, let alone a legal tackle on him.

And so instead they opted for a different approach.

The role of outside-half which Billo had so mastered was the key link in a chain.

The Amman’s muscular, unstoppable front-eight pack would claim every ball in scrum or ruck and feed it out to scrum-half Joe Griffiths. Griffiths’ single purpose was to ensure he offered up clean ball to Rees, who would linger ten yards clear of the forwards’ melee and from such a point of freedom release his rampaging backs and leave Ammanford chasing ghosts.

As they tied their bootlaces and pulled on their jerseys, the Ammanford captain spread the word to his men that he had a plan.

He dreamt up a plan so daring, so unpredicted, so unlikely, that none in the Amman’s ranks could have seen it coming.

The Ammanford skipper ordered his side to follow his word exactly and all but ignore the genius Rees and leave him free to wander how and where he wished.

Instead they were to focus their attentions on Griffiths – a decent player in his own right – but far short of the standard of Rees and without the physique and mental ingenuity of his three-quarter line partner.

Ammanford would target Griffiths and batter him into the ground. Two, three, often four men at a time would converge on him before he was able even to scoop up the ball up from the back of the scrum. Ammanford would crush him under flying bodies, flailing arms and heavy, studded boots.

The tactic sent the home fans apoplectic and fights broke out along the sidelines. The mood both on the field and off turned ugly, but with Billo Rees enjoying barely a touch of the ball all afternoon, Ammanford claimed a historic and infamous 10-8 victory.

The mood all along the Amman Valley spat and fizzed throughout the remainder of the afternoon and long into the night. The fat was most certainly in the fire.