March 12^th 1950 will go down as the saddest day in the history of this club.

Eight of our members were among the passengers on a plane returning to Wales after watching our Grand Slam victory over the Irish.

The Tudor V airliner was being watched by hundreds of friends, relatives and casual observers as it came in to land at Llandow aerodrome.

The aircraft crashed with a loss of 80 lives – the biggest civilian loss of lives at that time, still the early years of civil aviation as large wartime craft were modified for passenger use.

(See photo in Old Photos Gallery)

Seven of the eight died, traumatising not just our club but the whole village.

The story of this disaster is tied up with the design of our badge, the background of which is in the following extract from the History section of this website:

“The Club Badge

The badge is symbolic of the village’s history and culture. The four quarters show:

1. A sheaf of corn – pre coal mining Llanharan was very much a pretty agricultural village with its picturesque stone cottages clustered around important buildings such as the church, corn mill, inn and blacksmith’s, much of the economy related to the needs of the Llanharan House estate.
2. A Llanharan spaniel reputed to be a distinctive breed at a time when the estate also boasted its own pack of hunting hounds.
3. The parish church of St Julius and Aaron, an ancient foundation that boasts a Tudor chalice.
4. A pit head winding gear, reflecting the coal mining that dominated the village for almost a century.

The quarters are separated by a black cross commemorating the Llandow air disaster of March 12th 1950 when eight club members were in the plane returning from the Dublin international, seven of them losing their lives as it crashed on landing. Only Mel Thomas survived, sadly passing away in May 2011 at the age of 86. A special disaster memorial adorns the wall of the bar.”