Born this day 1874 in Chirk

Billy Meredith , the former Wales soccer international and captain, was considered one of the early superstars of football and one of the greatest players of his era.  Billy aged 74, is pictured kicking off a match with the Glyn Ceiriog team.

Billy started work at Black Park Colliery as a pit pony driver at the age of 12 and spent eight years working in the mines.  His family were Primitive Methodists and Meredith himself remained a lifelong teetotaller.  Meredith's playing career was spent between Manchester City and Manchester United and he won every domestic trophy in the English football league and at 46 years, 281 days, he became United's oldest ever player.  Meredith also gained 48 caps for Wales and at 45 years and 229 days, he remains the oldest player to win a Wales cap.

A model professional, he spent his spare time improving his game with extra training sessions and maintained peak physical fitness by avoiding alcohol and tobacco. His "gimmick" was to chew on a toothpick during matches, and contemporary cartoonists were quick to exploit this habit. Meredith was a firm supporter of firmly players' rights, held the view that they should, if they so wished, be allowed to move from club to club. He helped to form the players' union and supported a strike when the union entered into a dispute with the F.A.

30th July 1996 saw the video premiere of the film Hedd Wyn 

Hedd Wyn is an anti-war biopic based on the life of Ellis Humphrey Evans, a Welsh soldier killed in WWl. The title is the bardic name chosen by Evans, under which he was awarded, posthumously, the Eisteddfod Chair in 1917. The film starkly contrasts the beauty of the Meirionnydd landscape of the poet's home with the horror of the trenches at Passchendaele where he died. Evans, played by Huw Garmon, is portrayed as a tragic hero with an intense hatred of war and nationalism. Writer Alan Llwyd and director Paul Turner won several BAFTA Cymru awards, and the film was voted the Best Single Drama by the Royal Television Society. It was the first Welsh language film to be nominated for an Academy Award.

edffwef

edffwef

Stan Stennett (born in Cardiff on 30th July 1925) was a comedian, musician and actor. 

Stennett served in the army during World War II, and also worked as an entertainer. He became the regular comedian on a radio show,'Welsh Rarebit', although he was better known as a comedy guest on 'The Black and White Minstrel Show'. Although a renowned variety and pantomime performer, Stennett has also played "straight" acting roles in television programmes such as Casualty and Coronation Street. Stennett was a friend of Eric Morecambe, and he was acting as host during the final performance when Eric suffered a heart attack and died on 27 May 1984.   

edffwef

On 30th July 1942, a German Heinkel 111 crashed on Pwllheli beach, killing three crew. The pilot survived and was captured. 

During World War II, Germany used night bomber raids, in response to which the home forces employed night fighter squadrons which operated around the coast, as well as anti-aircraft guns and searchlights. One of the most successful night fighter units was 456 Squadron, stationed at Valley aerodrome on Anglesey. 

On the night of 30 July 1942 Wing Commander EC Wolfe was flying a Bristol Beaufighter over the Irish Sea and Cardigan Bay, seeking enemy raiders. With him was Pilot Officer EA Ashcroft. They confronted a German Heinkel bomber on its way to Birmingham. After an exchange of machine gun fire, the Heinkel went into a vertical dive and crashed onto the beach at Pwllheli.

Three men perished in the crash, but the pilot, Dirk Hofles, did manage to bale out of the diving Heinkel and was quickly taken prisoner and taken into captivity.