INTERVIEW_E_WILLIAMS_NOV89

Interview: EAV Williams.

E.A.V>Williams, now 75, played for WI in Eng in 1939 and in 3 home tests in 47-48. @Bridgetown his 50 came in 30 min(2x6 and 2x4 off his 1st 4 balls, from Jim Laker). MUDAr PATHERYA met him recently & found him eager to speak of old champions... and old injustices:

WISDEN CRICKET MONTHLY -- NOVEMBER 1989 PRE-EMPTIVE THANKS TO MR. DAVID FRITH

MP: you played alongside Learie Constantine. Was ge as good as they say? EAVW: as a matter of fact, he was better. he was the best allrounder in his day and the best fielder that i have ever seen. in spite of ltd-overs cricket having produced a high std of fielders, there has been no-one like learie. he was always doing fantastic things. he was bowling against notts in 1939. hardstaff & keeton were batting. they would push to cover and sneak singles. Constantine ran in to bowl, stopped 1/2way, & asked his man @cover to drop back. 'this man must be mad,' everyone saud. where he needed to stop one run, constantine was giving two! hardstaff pushed the next ball to cover and ran. i swear that by the time the 2 batsmen were together in the middle of the pitch, constantine had the ball in his hand @cover, deciding which batsman he should run out! he ran hardstaff out w/ a direct throw @the stumps. now no\one *told* me that. i saw it happen. we used to call him 'Twinkletoes' and 'Electric Heels'. oh, there were so many more instances. @kensington oval in barbados, i remember seeing learie @slop cut off a george challenor drive @cover. i don;t know how he got there! he used to be all over the place in a flash. anticipation, i suppose.

Bill Bowes once wrote about a 6 that constantine hit on the 1933 tour of eng. it went out of the ground over the wktkeepers head! if only leaire had steadied himself a bit more, he would have been 1 hell of a batsman. but he ahd a hang-up about hitting every ball. the people expected just that of him,and i suspect that he expected that ofhimslef as well. maybe he didn't take his batting seriously because he visualised himself as primarily a fast bowelr. w.i. teams in those days were mainly composed of whites w/a couple of coloureds to dothe donkey work, i mean

Photo: 'foffie' williams today, 75 yrs old.

the fast bowling. in the 1930's, herman griffith and he did th hard work while the glamour spot belonged to the whites.

you mentioned herman griffith. the man who bowled don bradman for 0 on 1 occasion. how good was he? herman griffith bowled immaculate length. even before ltd.overs cricket, griffith had learnt the lesson that more than swerve or swing, it is line which is more imp. he would be on the same spot ball after ball. a capn can set a field for good bowling; he cant do a thing if tge ball is down the leg side. griffith used to be striaght, allowing his capn to plug all the gaps in the field. bolwers today don't seem to be able to do it.

i have seen hedley verity hit a shilling 2 tmes out of 3; the 3rd time he was an inch away! when you tlak to me about the modern-day fast bowlers i say nonsense! tgey say malcolm marshall is a fast bowler... he bowls one down the legside w/ the new ball and the other over a batsman's head. wasting time. herman griffith bowled witihn the line betn wkt & wkt. a batsman found this sort of bowling more diff. than balls pitching outside the off stump.

Yes, but was herman Griffith fast? Quick, quick, quick, quick! but the fastest we had was a guy called George John, a Trinidadian. i saw him, but thankfully never faced him. he was a short fellow & had a pair of arms that went below his knees. oh, he was good. had to be; o/w no coloureds could have got into a white team. i could tell you some hair-raising stories, maan.

Like? Banning our 'rebel' cricketers, for instance. i am a life member of the Barbados Cricket assoc., but from the day they banned the cricketers who toured s.a., i have not been to Kensignton Oval and have no intention to. None whatsover, none! why don;t they ban golfers and tennis players who play in s.a.? hy do they ban only black cricketers? eng banned her players who went to s.a. for 3 yrs. the WI board banned theirs for life! &most of the boys who ent to s.a. were unemployed. i asked the members of the WIan board whether the boys had jobs. they said no. did you offer the boys jobs? they said no. were the 'rebels' men w/ families? yes. then what the hell would one have expected them to do when such a big offer came along? refuse? go around begging? just look @what boys like Alvin did w/ the money; they went out and made men out of themselves & put the money to good use. i tell you, this colour thing just eats my guts out. even in those days there used to be a line on our passports asking us to mention which colour we belonged to. 1 of the coloured cricketers from jamaica on that 1939 tour of eng --ironically, this fellow was a pretty intelligent chap w/a degree from oxford-- put down 'white'! we abandoned the 1939 tour towards the close to get home as fast as possible & escape the war. we docked in NY for some time and american immig. people came on board to check our doc.s they looked @this players passport &then his skin. you won't believe it, but they almost deported him. most of our players had to go down on our knees &beg the officials. we had to explain that we were cricketers returning from a tour ofeng. trouble was that they hadnt heard of cricket!

I wonder how players like Headley & Constantine could stomach all this? Black, black. on the 1930-31 tour of aus. when george headley was asked to write on the immig papers which ntnlty he belonged to, he defiantly wrote 'african'!

Photo: Learie 'Electric Heels' Constantine: 'the best fielder i have ever seen' [constantine is in his run-up]

What about Constatine?

We never saw much of him on that 1939 toue of eng. except occasionally @ breakfast or in the team coach to the ground. off the field he would be in his room --he always asked for a single 1-- working till late @night, w/ books of ref all around him. he was writing a book called *Cricket and I* in those days.

I suppose that was the book he wanted to call *A Nigger Sits and Thinks* ? that's it. but he was a nice guy/ if there was any advice you were looking for, he was alwaus available. he was a retty serous minded fellow. it took him a long time to get his Bar-@-Law, but, playing actively in the leagues, hecouldn't get enough time to study.

Was he as fast as the bowlers these days? I don't knwo whether bowlers today are fast. We had a real quick one in those days called 'Manny' Martindale. He was from my club, Empire, and i dont think i saw anyone as consistently fast. we used to have a wktkeeper for him right up the fence, some 25 yds behind the stumps, &he would be lifted off the ground by sheer force of impact each time he took the ball.

On a slightly different angle... how good was George Headley? As good as, say, Viv Richards?

Nuh, maan. Viv is not even in Headley's street. the only thing ugly about headley was his stance; he would turn around while the ball was being bowled. apart from that he was FC. open-chested but very quick of eye. he could see the direction in which the ball was spinning in flight. then there was Everton Weeked. short man, but he square-cut so hard it wasn't funny. in his entire career, everton weekes hit only one 6. he confessed that it was a rush of blood. evry other shot to hte bdry was along the ground. next to him was patsy hendren. maan, he was damn good. frank worrell was a classic batsman. he stayed just across the club ground and i still remember that we used to see him as a 4yrold w/ only a shrit and no pants. he was a very good footballer till the age of 7 after which his cricket potential became evident.

Where would Sir Garry Sobers fit in? Better than Constantine as an allrounder. he could bat, bowl fast, chinamen and orthodox legspin, and field close to the bat. he was a cocky 16yrold playing for the police band in barbados, &i remember hitting him in the mouth w/a del. he never forgot where he came from; the Sobers ofthen and now are the same, unlike most people.

It is surprising that WI emerged as a superpower in cricket immed after the war and not before.

That was for only 1 reason -- certain players got into the barbados team @the expense of others. I couldn't make it on a few occasions even though the guys who did were not as good. their pnly passoprt was that they were white.

I'll tell you an interesting story. Barbados were playing British Guiana in Guiana. Frank Worrell, myeslf and two other cricketers were invited to capn John Goddard's room. Rum was porued. Before we could pick up our glass 1 of the 2 brothers high up on the WI board said:'i wish i could live to see the day when 11 white men walk out for barbados @the kensington oval.' worrell reacted in a flash.'sorry for you, john. i won't get into the team because i am a nigger,' he told the capn. he dropped his glass onto hte sidewalk off stabroek market and walked out.

How well were cricketers paid? when we went to eng in 1939, the amateurs got only #2.10.0 a week as cig money. & 1/2salary from my employers. others were not even as lucky. there was a player called giddon from barbados, a teacher, who had to lose his wages each time he turned out to play for the island.

From: Anant