As the late sports journalist George Beckford would say, “Comments and letters flowed like Sweet Afton” in response to last week’s column on the subject of sugar and bauxite industry cricket.

Keith Rowe, former Clarendon and St Ann club cricketer, reminisced that he grew up in the sugar belt around Monymusk and recalled that cricket was a special part of estate life. “As schoolboys we benefited significantly from the regular practice matches and use of the field.”

Other letters reminded of the glory days when estate cricket flourished during the 1930s to the 1960s, with the major prize being the Caymanas Cup fought for in the Crum Ewing Competition. Players and spectators also revelled in the May and Baker Competition. But the crowning glory was the Sir Alexander Bustamante Cup competition, a zonal contest played across the island. Monymusk, Long Pond, Duckenfield, New Yarmouth, Gray’s Inn, Innswood, Holland, Bernard Lodge, Hampden, and Frome were the teams to beat. Players of the order of Rex Suckoo, Owen Allison, Renford Pinnock, Barton Reynolds, Neil Hosang, Ordelmo Peters, and Lynval Crawford were always on the fringe of greatness and came as near as was possible for rural players to penetrate into the then impregnable national team spaces reserved for the city players.

Enthusiasm was always high, with the competitions providing all the virility and excitement that rural spectators brought to the game. Indeed, the final of the Bustamante Cup had all the atmosphere of a Test match as it was the climax to weeks of speculation and drew large crowds.

This was rural sports at its best, and as sugar’s fortunes declined it was left to the bauxite industry to take up the mantle of sports leadership in their respective operating areas in what could be called the bauxite belt.

The sugar estates all boasted well-kept grounds and pavilions. Each village had its “commons”, but it was to the first-class club cricket fields that people gravitated for weekend sport. The introduction of the bauxite industry in the late 50s and mid 60s heralded the construction of new recreation facilities for employee and community sports. Thus we saw the rise of the famous Kirkvine Club in Manchester; the Reynolds cricket oval in St Ann, which was laid out by none other than Sir Frank Worrell himself; the popular Port Esquivel grounds; and the Kaiser Sports Club, first built at Port Kaiser (near Alligator Pond).

In the 1960s there came the Alpart Club at Nain in St Elizabeth, and a new Kaiser Sports Club in Discovery Bay (now Noranda’s Port Rhoades Sports Club), famed for their hosting of international cricket, pushcart derbies, athletics meets, football competitions, tennis, touring international netball teams, and badminton.

With cricket strongly supported by management and company, it was only a matter of time before the bauxite industry organised an inter-company Horwood Shield competition, which had entire districts closing shops on match days to journey all over the island to support their home-based teams. In 1976, the all-bauxite rural team shocked the cricketing world when it ran a very close third to St Catherine and the champions, Kingston Cricket Club, in the Senior Cup. They finished well ahead of the long-established Lucas, Melbourne, Kensington, Boys’ Town, and the Jamaica Defence Force.

All-bauxite was a natural to catch the selectors’ eyes, as they were power-packed with players like Livern Wellington, Renford Pinnock, Trevor Henry, George Powell, Suckoo, Gene Holland, Bertram Peart, Calder Neita, Preston Hill, Bernard Solomon, and Clovis McKnight. It wasn’t long before Henry was picked for the Jamaica team and Paul Bryan, a magnificent all-rounder, chosen as emergency fieldsman for the West Indies.

All the companies had, and still have, well-laid-out fields and pleasant pavilions, which played an important role in developing rural cricket. Consider that the Noranda and Alpart youth programmes produced parish and national teams out of the sponsored schools and summer sports competitions.

Sports and youth development are two of the social involvement areas in which the bauxite industry stands out as a mega player. Take a page out of Noranda’s book, they have a comprehensive sports programme that involves primary, secondary, tertiary, community, parish, and national organisations. Like the other companies, their sports club is easily the parish and regional centre for employees, schools, clubs, parish and national teams for training and competition.

With the poor performance of our national teams today, I believe that cricket needs to return to the days when the game was, first of all, fun; had full participation on and off the field; and provided valuable recreation in remote areas that otherwise had little but the odd film show, lantern slide, donkey races, and ‘ole time picnics’ for recreation.

Former Jamaican cricketer John Richards has provided us with some great stories where city teams travelling to the country for curry goat matches would run into the most hilarious encounters, where often the local teams played by their own rules.

Richards recalls being no-balled as a result of a bet he made with the umpire at a match at Prospect in St Mary. As he prepared for his run-up, the local umpire said: “I bet you don’t get this man”. He accepted a 10 shilling bet and promptly yorked the batsman. This was much to the annoyance of the umpire. As the batsman started to walk, the umpire called out “No ball!” Richards remonstrated that it was too late to call ‘no ball’, but umpy explained that he stammered and that’s why his call came out so late. “I withdrew all other bets thereafter,” said Richards.

One unforgettable ‘great moment in sports’ occurred at Holland Estate, where a batsman batted twice in the same innings. A Kingston team was playing against an all-Indian 11, and the Indians were doing badly in their reply to a score of 200 runs. One of their batsmen had a long beard and showed promise of building up an impressive score. Unfortunately for the local fans, he was caught at a crucial moment and sent back to the pavilion.

As the game dragged on and the wickets continued to fall, the Kingston captain noticed another batsman who looked remarkably like the chap who sported the beard coming to the wicket. He spoke to the umpires about it. With a straight face the umpire said the man was a twin brother. At the end of the game it turned out that it was the man with the beard who had shaved in order to have a second innings! Of such is cricket and its untold stories.

Richards recalls a B B Patterson, an opening bat for Railway, who ignored the umpire’s decision during a Junior Cup match against Approved School at Stony Hill. B B had been a Senior Cup star in his time, and when he arrived at the wicket he was greeted with applause. There was a loud appeal for lbw off his first ball, and up went the umpire’s finger. But B B had not played in years and wanted to enjoy his innings. Seeing that the umpire had given him out, he exclaimed, “You are talking foolishness. I played the ball and I am going to run two!” Which he did. Needless to say, the umpire withdrew the decision after observing the serious look on B B’s face. I can only surmise that it must have been Patterson’s ball.

Homework

Heartiest congratulations to Finance Minister Peter Phillips on his selection as

The Gleaner‘s Man of the Year. I thought that he would be a shoo-in for this award based on his unyielding approach to meeting his objectives and the conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund. Agree with him or not, unlike other ministers, he has not blinked and has not allowed himself to be swayed. The shortcomings of the policy will no doubt be highlighted during the coming campaign, and the debate over the economic measures will provide ground for strong argument between “Man-a-Yard” and Man of the Year.

Right frequency

On another matter, in an earlier column I gave the wrong frequency for the Discovery Bay radio station GGFM. It’s 90.1, and not 93.1, as I stated.

PR campaign?

Finally, I am puzzled about who is paying for the flood of messages, advertisements, and greetings broadcasting the achievements of the Government at this time. Are they paid announcements by the Government, or paid announcements by the People’s National Party? And, if it is the

Jamaica Information Service authoring these announcements, they are compromising their professionalism and should desist.

Lance Neita is a public and community relations consultant. Send comments to the Observer or lanceneita@hotmail.com