West Indians in local leagues

In my area we are members of the local evening legaue. It is not as good as it was. In the 80s and 90 if you were in the First Division and didnt have one Test player in your team you would struggle. A lot of Kiwis, Windies, Indians and Aussies played in it. We had Clayton Lambert, Derryk Parry, Deighton Butler, Harry Gurney, Darren Pattinson over the years. Playing against Martin Crowe, Ken Rutherford, Mark Greatbatch, Murray Goodwin, Andy Flower and the like. The odd county player and a couple of us would look around the changing room and say " WTF are we doing here?" Happy days.
 


Blackhall had some lads in the 80’s, I think I saw Desmond Haynes and Malcolm Marshall there, I’m not even that sure. I just wanted to play on the slide and swings in them days.
 
Voice of fair play said:
Unless the lad seen him in one of them benefit games, I seem to remember when I was a kid, the pro had a benefit game, one game a season when other pros came for one game.

Think they stopped but do seem to remember them happening.
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We had one at Whitburn for Patterson Thompson when he was pro there.

His team was made up of WI pros from around the leagues and the opposition was a DSL select XI.

The amount of Jamaican rum consumed by Patto's team was unbelievable - as was the 'cigarette' smoke emanating from the dressing room windows.
 
Jap Stammer said:
We had one at Whitburn for Patterson Thompson when he was pro there.

His team was made up of WI pros from around the leagues and the opposition was a DSL select XI.

The amount of Jamaican rum consumed by Patto's team was unbelievable - as was the 'cigarette' smoke emanating from the dressing room windows.
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Not to mention the amount of lady 'fans' that turned up who nobody had ever seen before !
 
jaxaxe said:
Was playing in a preseason match one year for Eppleton - sometime in the 80s.

Max Alleyne, then the Whitburn pro, came into our dressing room, and started cracking on with the lads. A short while later, we were also joined by Vince Hilaire (not the Crystal Palace footballer) who was the pro at Eppleton Colliery Welfare. Shortly after, they were joined by a third West Indian quickie, who was also a pro locally.

After a while, one of them asked "Are you the pro here Max ?". Max said he wasn't. Once they worked out that none of them were our pro, Max asked us "Who's the pro here, lads ?".

The answer came from the back of the room in a South African accent: "I'm the professional." - Alan Elgar

The temperature in the room dropped by ten degrees...
In fairness, Alan Elgar was a lovely lad.
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Sure he waa called Dean St.Hilaire if my memory serves me right
 
safc10 said:
Sure he waa called Dean St.Hilaire if my memory serves me right
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It was a formidable pace battery in our dressing room, that's for sure. And none of them were ours !

Was curious about what happened next to our Eppleton pro, Alan Elgar, the South African lad. After a brief Google search I was saddened to read that he'd taken his own life after a bout of depression. Lovely lad, and good pro and coach.
 
Bagatelle said:
Yes, 1964 don't know how many seasons they were at their respective clubs
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I'm certain Kanhai played in Gibbs' testimonial game alongside Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith.

A few years ago someone donated to Whitburn CC a cricket bat that they'd won in a raffle that day - it was signed by all of the Wes Indian greats who were playing that day. I think it was mounted and framed and now hangs on the wall in the WCC clubhouse.
 

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