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Black History Month: Celebrating the Windrush Legacy
As part of Black History Month, we thought that we would take a look back at our Windrush Legacy Fixture from earlier this year.
Somerset County Cricket Club and Somerset Cricket Foundation partnered with the Somerset African Caribbean Network (SACN) on July 26th for our Metro Bank One Day Cup match against Kent.
The event provided Members and supporters with a chance to see a Windrush display in the fan village and provided a great opportunity to sample a variety of authentic delicious Caribbean food. In addition to this, there was a display celebrating Somerset’s black cricketers in the Somerset Cricket Museum.
SCCC and SCF were delighted to welcome SACN Chair, Susann Savidge and Committee members Jean Harper and Judith Desbonne from the network to engage with us for the Legacy event.
It is 76 years since the HMT Empire Windrush docked in Tilbury, Essex, carrying passengers from the Caribbean to the UK. HMT Empire Windrush became a symbol of a wider mass-migration movement. Commemoration events have been held on 22 June every year since 2018 across the country.
A range of planned activities were undertaken to share the work the of SACN, to provide access to educational resources and inform people about the Windrush events and make connections with SCCC’s rich heritage with the Caribbean diaspora through reawakening the legacy of world class players such as Sir Vivian Richards and Joel Garner.
Two stalls were also set up on the day. One was in the Straggler’s Coffee House with the historical information of the Windrush event, reflections of the Windrush 75 activities plus information about famous Black cricketers of Caribbean heritage that have played cricket for England and the West Indies – Susann and Judith staffed this.
The other stall was in the Fan village overseen by Jean which throughout the day actively engaged visitors with a geographical challenge on the flags of the Caribbean nations and highlighted other multicultural resources of interest were on display.
Judith, on her first visit to SCCC, took the opportunity to have a guided walk around the ground taking in the Legends Wall, the Joel Garner Gates, the Sir Vivian Richards Gates and the Somerset Cricket Museum.
During the match, Susann was welcomed to the Media Centre and was interviewed by former Somerset all-rounder Peter Trego on the live stream. They had an enjoyable conversation lasting about 15 mins about all things Caribbean, cricket, carnival and memories of Sir Viv and Joel Garner.
During the interval Susann and Mustafa Shaikh (SCF Community Activation Officer) took the opportunity to engage with members of the public in recollecting wonderful and personal memories of Sir Viv as the Club’s number one cricketing Legend. We would like to thank the Somerset Cricket Museum for allowing us to use the museum, where we set up a beautiful and welcoming space on the upper floor for people to share their stories.
Susann expressed her gratitude to the SCF and SCCC for involving Somerset African Caribbean Network in the Windrush Legacy matchday experience.
Regarding the event, Jon Bendle, Managing Director of Somerset Cricket Foundation, said: “To establish the Windrush Legacy Day at the recent match was an enormous success. Our aim as an organisation is to partner with and develop long lasting and meaningful relationships with our communities. To welcome the Somerset African Caribbean Network to The Cooper Associates County Ground was a pleasure and paves the way to expand our work with the organisation in the future. The range of cultural information, literature and food were all very popular with the supporters, raising the awareness of Windrush.”
SCF has also encouraged wider engagement of the community regarding the Windrush Legacy, offering over one hundred Primary Schools access to an assembly/PHSE resource pack and an opportunity to take part in a Windrush poster competition to win a school kit bag and Amazon book vouchers.
Over one hundred flyers were distributed to young people at the Family Day to engage in a Master Blaster Sir Viv tee shirt design competition. Both competition results winners will be announced shortly.
