PAGE 347
‘This probably sounds unbearably egotistical…’ … ‘the colour question’
Worrell, interviewed by Ian Wooldridge (Cricket, Lovely Cricket, p.159).
It was rare for him to pass explicit comment…
His Times obituary noted that Worrell ‘only rarely revealed the depth of his feeling on racial matters’ (14 March 1967, p.14).
It may even be that Wooldridge rather than Worrell used the term here, even if his interviewee was keen to discuss the subject: ‘I did not raise the colour question with Worrell. He raised it with me’ (p.159).
‘will stick by you and defend you through each and every crisis’
Worrell, Cricket Punch, p.127.
He makes this observation specifically of Weekes, but in a chapter on ‘the Three Ws’ which is equally complimentary about Walcott: ‘The three of us have each had our fair ration of success, and that success has been due in no small measure to the help we have given each other. We have always remained firm friends, there have been no petty jealousies, no cross words between us.’
a ‘merger’ as the W-formation made ‘good business sense’
Weekes (with Beckles), Mastering the Craft, pp.62-63.
In a more heroic mode, Bruce St John’s poem ‘Cricket’ includes the Three Ws among its intricate metaphors of ‘de whole “Trinity”’ (Bowling was Superfine, pp.114-16).
Walcott took up a post in British Guiana…
As previously mentioned in the footnotes to Chapter 13.
In his second autobiography, Walcott describes the period between 1954 and 1970 as one of the ‘most satisfying’ of his life, although by the end the ‘racial and political problems in the country’ meant that he and his wife were ready to go home to Barbados (Sixty Years of Cricket, pp.64-69).
Although Weekes went back to Bacup in 1956 and 1958…
Weekes also appeared for Middleton against Walsden in the Wood Cup Final of 1954 where he scored 151* and took 43.5-10-92-9 (8-ball overs) – and was still not man of the match (p.210) – perhaps the award was reserved for non-professionals.
he had begun to concentrate on paid coaching roles…
Towards the end of the 1953/54 tour, it was announced that he had signed a contract with Bermudez Biscuits Co. to coach in Trinidad and Tobago, and the Leeward and Windward Islands (Trinidad Guardian, 26 March, p.1). Weekes also coached on his home island, and in 1957 effectively became the national cricket coach with the title ‘Government Sports Officer’ (Cozier, p.46).
Writing in 1963, Worrell praised Weekes as ‘one of the most knowledgeable men on the game’, and registered his disappointment ‘when I learnt that his appointment was looked upon as unnecessary by a large faction of the people of his island’ (Eytle, p.23).
Worrell remained in England…
A big influence on Worrell at Manchester University – and it would be fascinating to know more about their relationship – was the anthropologist Max Gluckman – Worrell asked for his work as his Desert Island Book.
PAGE 348
‘as if was they wheelin’ de willow | as if was them had the power’
Brathwaite, ‘Rites’, in The Arrivants, p.200.
Weekes … remembered generally ‘uplifting times’ …
Weekes (with Beckles), Mastering the Craft, p.79.
‘lickin’ gloy |pun de Gover’ment stamps’
Brathwaite, ‘Rites’, in The Arrivants, p.201.
‘What am I going to say to Frank Worrell?’ … ‘preposterous in any circumstances’
Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.151.
PAGE 349
‘purely an experiment’ … ‘continuous cricket’
This paragraph quotes from and paraphrases a statement made by R.C. Marley, a Jamaican representative on the Board of Control, as reported in The Gleaner, 27 July 1954, p.10.
a ‘bombshell’ … ‘only people who meet certain criteria can ever hope…’
Roberts, Sports Editor’s Diary in The Gleaner, 24 July 1954, p.10.
From Trinidad, in the Evening News, Albert Alkins took it as virtually read that Atkinson would now be captain in England in 1957 if Stollmeyer was not.
all of whom had ‘an ocean of ability and experience’
Roberts, Sports Editor’s Diary in The Gleaner, 24 July 1954, p.10.
‘much more likely’ … ‘old-fashioned precedent’ … ‘its roots deeply laid in England’
Walcott, Island Cricketers, p.104.
such a ‘silly tradition’…
Roberts, Sports Editor’s Diary in The Gleaner, 24 July 1954, p.10.
PAGE 350
‘in the most conservative of all English sports’ … ‘irrespective of colour’
Constantine, Colour Bar, p.38.
James later reflected … ‘superior’ to the officers … the ‘framework’
According to his wife Selma James, in a Reuters article on the fiftieth anniversary of Beyond a Boundary: ‘Len Hutton was the framework of CLR’s campaign to make Frank Worrell captain … It was really the common man who comes from below who is the superior. He makes his way up to the officer class. That’s what happened to Len Hutton and that’s what happened to Frank Worrell.’
‘a bone stuck in history’s throat’
Manley, ‘Sir Frank Worrell, Cricket and West Indian Society’ (in Beckles [ed.], Area of Conquest), p.146.
‘spent two or three hours with Ian…’
Miller, Charles Palmer, p.101.
‘went out of his way to be charming’
Landsberg, Kangaroo Conquers, p.219.
an all-night card school with Keith Miller on the eve of the second Test
See Walcott, Sixty Years, pp.72-73.
‘They let us have it.’
But it should be added that Sobers fondly remembered the social side of the 1954/55, Lindwall and Miller in particular befriending the young West Indian players, having a ‘drink and a chat to make us feel part of what was going on around us’ (My Autobiography, p.32).
There were flashpoints in every Test…
PAGE 351
‘occasional and short-lived’ … ‘singularly pleasant’
Walcott, Island Cricketers, p.105.
‘sullen mood’
Pat Landsberg, Kangaroo Conquers, p.16: ‘There had been sharp and bitter comment about the MCC side and the West Indies, normally quick to forget and forgive, were still in sullen mood’.
‘the hub of an empire’
Manley, History, p.109:
A social footnote is provided by the fact that the Australian tour was marked by a general good nature as striking as the somewhat sour relations of the 1954 visit by England. Hutton’s dour, Yorkshire nature, by contrast with Ian Johnson’s Aussie ebullience, may have been a factor. Then again, Australia was never the hub of an empire. In 1954 there was still an empire and England was still its hub.
Some of these reflected traditional insular rivalries…
Landsberg found the ‘Hang Holt – Save Hylton’ placard ‘one of the more disgusting signs of West Indian dis-unity’ (p.167); some West Indians were more tolerant, even if like Sobers they accepted the ‘gallows humour’ was in bad taste.
J.B. Emtage provided a fictional version of this incident in his novel Brown Sugar, where he describes feelings running high in a final Test trial: ‘mere affairs of state could never have aroused such passions’ (Bowling was Superfine, p.153).
‘the cause of much of the dissension and bad cricket played by our team…’
Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.151.
Wishart … reportedly never forgiven for questioning ‘white supremacy’ …
The phrase ‘white supremacy’ is used by Tim Hector in his discussion of this Board contretemps (in Beckles [ed.], Area of Conquest, p.118) and is not a phrase dos Santos would have used himself. But, while his threat to hold the next Board meeting in the remotest location possible is a matter of anecdote not record, as is the exchange of cables between him and Wishart, the affair was significant in that it was probably the first time members of the Board were making the issue of race explicit. See also Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.154.
a protest meeting was held at Kingston Racecourse
According to the visiting journalist, Pat Landsberg, the demonstration at the racecourse of between 1,000 and 1,500 people was led by Dr M.B. Douglas of the African Welfare League Organisation, with placards bearing messages such as ‘Colour discrimination must stop’ and calling for a boycott of the final Test (Kangaroo Conquers, pp.31-32).
Even before the first Test, Landsberg reported ‘a violent protest against the appointment of Atkinson as captain above Worrell by United African National Council, with a telegram to the West Indian Selectors and a planned Anti-Atkinson campaign through loudspeaker equipped car patrolling the ground’ (p.40).
PAGE 352
‘great indignation’ … ‘perfect gentleman’ … ‘force immaturity…’
Roberts, in The Gleaner, 3 May 1955, p.10.
‘insult’ … ‘increasing disconnection from the game locally between 1956 and 1960’
Manley, History, p.108.
‘additional responsibility with the bat…’ … ‘determined’ … ‘Frank and Clyde’
Weekes (with Beckles), Mastering the Craft, p.156-57.
‘his presence would not, I feel, have made too much difference’
Walcott, Sixty Years, p.24.
He remembered an ‘order’ from the Queen … conveyed by Princess Margaret
Landsberg, Kangaroo Conquers, p.19.
hoping to ‘re-establish’ his claims…
Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.157.
PAGE 353
He captained the home side to deserved victories…
These were admittedly won on first-innings lead, but in both cases BG had by far the better of the game.
‘Jeff, I have something to tell you…’
Stollmeyer, Everything Under the Sun, p.158.
‘As we say in Trinidad and Tobago, “Two man rat …”’
Ganteaume, My Story, p.50. [I have inserted a comma after Tobago.]
Meanwhile, Jamaicans detected an inter-island alliance of convenience…
Manley, History, p.130.
PAGE 354
‘race and class issues…’ … ‘like Jonah, in the bowels of the ship’
Weekes (with Beckles), Mastering the Craft, p.159.
But Worrell later reflected on a tour of ‘factions’…
All the quotations in the rest of this paragraph are from Worrell’s short summary of the tour provided for Eytle’s biography, pp.134-35.
Walcott thought Cowdrey in particular enjoyed ‘immunity’ from lbw
Island Cricketers, p.140.
Weekes joked bitterly he had contracted ‘laryngitis’ …
Weekes (with Beckles), Mastering the Craft, p.160.
‘ever more intense and hard’ … ‘national prestige’
Walcott, Island Cricketers, p.135-36.
PAGE 355
‘preoccupied by strategy’
Ganteaume, My Story, p.52.
‘unmistaken gifts of leadership’
Wisden was referring specifically to Worrell’s efforts as stand-in captain late in the tour, but its comment is also applicable more generally.
They both claimed that they were subject to ‘violent’ racial abuse…
Worrell says that ‘we were abused when the players were changing ends at the finish of each over, and while few of the remarks were addressed directly to either Walcott or me, the Surrey players made certain that we heard them’. The language used was ‘much more violent than anything we had ever heard before during a game’ (Cricket Punch, pp.117-18).
Walcott says that, after a couple of ‘incidents’ where the Surrey players believed Asgarali and Worrell should have walked, the atmosphere ‘reminded one vividly of moments in the MCC 1953/54 series in West Indies’ (Island Cricketers, p.145).
‘steady on’ … ‘You would not have known those b____s were here…’
Worrell, Cricket Punch, p.118.
Worrell says he left The Oval ‘a very sad man’
And indeed ‘shattered’ by the whole experience: ‘If we had behaved half as badly as Surrey behaved on that last day we would have been dubbed as a lot of savages – and deservedly so’ (Cricket Punch, p.119).
‘opinion was divided’ …
Ganteaume, My Story, p.55.
‘commendable good humour’
Harris, West Indies Cricket Challenge, p.157.
an ‘unconditional surrender’
Gordon Ross, Testing Years, p.216.
‘Goddard became a name associated both with West Indies’ finest hour…’
Barker, in Cricket in the Sun, p.67.
[He puts inverted commas round “Goddard”, perhaps alluding to the fact the name sometimes seemed ubiquitous in Barbados, but I have taken them off as I thought they would be distracting here.]
‘did not bother much about getting fit’
De Caires, quoted in Sunday Gleaner, 6 October 1957, p.14.
After the intervention of Peirce, de Caires doubled down in another series of comments that, despite the failures of Weeks and Walcott on tour ‘it was never even dreamt of that physical exercise of any kind should be indulged in’ (reported in Gleaner, 19 December 1957, p.14).
‘certain references in the West Indian press regarding the physical condition…’
The Gleaner, 1 April 1958, p.12.
Sobers credited both men for their support at the crease…
See Cricketing Crusader, pp.52-54, where Sobers says Walcott in particular ‘opened my mind to the possibility of a personal world record’.
from Trinidad, Stollmeyer seemed to think…
As reported in The Gleaner, 14 November 1957, p.14.
from Barbados, the former Test player Foffie Williams considered it…
As reported in The Gleaner, 15 November 1957, p.14.
from BG, the journalist Hank Harper thought it…
As reported in The Gleaner, 23 January 1957, p.14.
All Weekes will say now is that dos Santos deserves some credit…
Telephone interview with the author, 31 January 2018.
‘began to mould the team’ … dealing with the ‘splinter groups’
Worrell, in Eytle’s biography, p.119.
‘can’t get along without a white boss’
Butcher, interviewed in Birbalsingh’s Guyana and the Caribbean, pp.135-36.
Butcher definitely took Gilchrist’s side, saying most of the players were ‘hurt’ because ‘for someone regarded as the best in the world to be belittled for what I thought was no reason at all was inexcusable’. But he did agree with his interviewer that the affair would be grist to the mill of those still arguing for white leadership – Butcher does not actually call his captain in India ‘high brown’ but that is what he implies when he says ‘Alexander has brothers as dark as I am’.
a ‘private’ tour
The Gleaner, 21 December 1958.
The Board was responding to reports that Worrell planned a long tour from November 1959 to June 1960. He had already signed up Weekes, Ramadhin, Valentine, Collie Smith, Ganteaume, Sewdney, Ramsamooj, Madray, Martindale, Legall. He hoped to invite Sobers, Hunte and King, although he would ‘purposely’ not be asking Hall or other fast bowlers expected to have a heavy workload at home against England (16 December 1958, p.15). According to Empire 75th Anniversary Club Book, ‘the members of that touring team had all been outfitted with gear and kit when the tour was summarily aborted’ (p.36).
recent disputes about pay
Sobers, Hunte, Ramadhin and Cammie Smith were reported as refusing to tour India on pay (Gleaner, 17 August 1958, p.3).
‘people of my generation did not in general believe Worrell was getting a raw deal’
Woodville Marshall, ‘The Worrell-Sobers Revolution’, in Beckles (ed.), Area of Conquest, p.35.
Worrell did respond to the Board’s request to play as vice-captain…
Some thought this decision was mainly driven by his desire to honour the memory of his protégé at the Boys Town Club in Jamaica, Collie Smith, who had been tragically killed in a car accident in England in 1959.
the ‘notably shrewd direction’ of Weekes…
Swanton, West Indies Revisited, p.27.
Ross thought Weekes captained with ‘unobtrusive subtlety and skill’ (Through the Caribbean, p.23).
‘Everton Weekes wraps up the England tail. The England tail wraps up Alexander’
The Nation, 26 February 1960, p.10.
James is at his most Cardusian in the seventeenth chapter of Beyond a Boundary, which carries this title. His argument is that just as the Golden Age of cricket was an expression of a zeitgeist of ‘daring, adventure, creation’, so the negative cricket he had been watching throughout the 1950s was reflective of a ‘security-minded’ age (p.211). It is not perhaps the most persuasive section of the book, although it does also include a passage on ‘social rebirth’ in the West Indies, with which the Three Ws were intimately linked (p.214).
Bailey, whom Robins never forgave for the slowest half-century…
See Rendell, Walter Robins, p.121.
‘the friendliest relations’ with both the press and the hosts
Swanton, West Indies Revisited; compare Sort of a Cricket Person, p.192.
The manager undoubtedly handled Trueman … more successfully…
Trueman was fulsome in his praise for Robins as a manager in several of his autobiographies.
But, in his managers’ report, Robins still described Trueman as ‘difficult and aggressive when things were not going his way. This was very evident when he became senior professional on Statham’s return home’ (Peel, Ambassadors, p.144).
‘had very little to do with the players and everything to do with the press’
This is the testimony of David Allen (see Peel, Ambassadors, p.144), although Richard Whitehead points out to me that the oft-told story that Allen had been designated to carry Robins’ briefcase around the Caribbean is somewhat called into question by the fact that he played in all of the Tests.
‘en rapport with all the senior members of the side’
Sort of a Cricket Person, p.193.
Ross noted that ‘relations had at no time been exactly close between captain and manager’ and outlined their argument about May’s injury in some detail (Through the Caribbean, p.197).
Robins barged in to argue ‘with his customary force’ …
Some accounts place this conversation post hoc but Peel says it took place ‘late on the final morning’ (p.144). Wilde provides another useful quick overview (England, p.319-20).
It still takes two not to tango
Whereas Alan Davidson noted that Benaud and Worrell in the next series both deserved credit for the positive way the series was played: ‘It takes two to tango’ (Calypso Summer, Part 2, about 3 minutes in).
In his managers’ report, Robins observed:
I know Peter May originally intended his Team to play open and attacking cricket but it takes two to make a game and the bowling tactics of the West Indies in the first Test put our Captain’s and Team’s backs up and from then on every Test was a battle with our fellows honestly believing that they were fighting for their country.
(Report in MCC Archive, as transcribed by Peel, Ambassadors, p.140).
‘the old type of amateur outlook’
May uses this phrase in A Game Enjoyed when claiming, fairly unconvincingly, his relationship with Robins was not as fraught as some believed (p.172).
‘good defensive cricket’
Stollmeyer, interviewed by Ross in Through the Caribbean, p.244.
‘dog-in-the-manger attitude’
Ross, Through the Caribbean, p.10.
PAGE 361
‘Trevor Bailey at his worst’
Charles Bray, Trinidad Guardian, 12 January 1960, p.16.
‘a personal vendetta against the Barbados members …’
Ross, Through the Caribbean, p.44.
Even Worrell’s admirers accepted that Alexander declared…
Stollmeyer took a dim view of Worrell having to be handed notes ordering him to speed up (Everything Under the Sun, p.163). Compare Ross, Through the Caribbean, p.46; Swanton, West Indies Revisited, p.70.
‘so happy for Frank’
As recorded in Trinidad Guardian, 20 March 1960, when it noted that Alexander was ‘one of the first to congratulate’ Worrell: ‘“I’m so happy for Frank”, Gerry is reported to have said to friends.’
‘suffering from Worellitis’
As reported by Stollmeyer in Everything Under the Sun, p.165.
worn out by a ‘war of attrition’ on the field