Sunday September 11th promises to be a memorable day at Shepherd’s Bush Cricket Club, as the Club holds its annual celebration of Caribbean heritage and the contribution its players have made to English Club Cricket - Middlesex Cricket is proud to be supporting this special day.
Few league Clubs across the county of Middlesex can lay claim to having such a significant number of Caribbean cricketers come through its playing ranks as Shepherd’s Bush can, and this annual event honours all those who have played their part in the Club’s rich and proud history and aims to inspire the next generation of cricket lovers.
Heritage Day is a day of cricket, history, food, and music, with an exhibition curated by cricket historian Peter Mason, which tells a story that spans decades, through photographs, memorabilia and former players’ and Club members’ accounts, who have witnessed at first hand what an incredible role so many players of Caribbean heritage have played in helping to shape the history of Shepherd’s Bush Cricket Club.
The highlight of the day will be a showcase cricket match between a Representative Eleven from the Ace Programme and a Shepherd’s Bush Invitational Eleven, taking place on the Club’s main square.
The Shepherd’s Bush record books tell us that it was in the 1970’s when the first player of Caribbean heritage played for the Club - Mike Joseph, who was said to have come from Trinidad. He paved the way for those who followed, although it was Jamaican born Alf Langley, who joined the Club in 1974, who was pivotal in helping the Club create a culture that welcomed and opened its arms to fellow players of Caribbean heritage, and the rest as they say, is history.
That culture still thrives today, and over the years the Club has had many playing members from not only Trinidad and Jamaica in the early years, but from Barbados, Dominica, Antigua, Guyana, St Lucia, and Grenada to name but a few, with several of those players going on from ‘the Bush’ to forge successful careers in the professional county game.
Sunday’s celebrations are due acknowledgement to the services that every one of these players have made to not only Shepherd’s Bush themselves, but to the English Club game, as without their involvement, the game would have been so much poorer for it.
Heritage Day gets underway at 11am and everyone is welcome for what promises to be a really special celebration of Shepherd’s Bush CC’s Caribbean heritage.
Event Information
