... the British-Resident Caribbean Diaspora (Revised and Updated)

Colin Babb

In 1948, the Empire Windrush ship sailed from Jamaica with more than 400 Caribbean migrants seeking to create a new future in Britain. Two years later, the West Indies cricket team beat England for the first time on English soil at Lord’s. For some Caribbean migrants, and their descendants, who settled in Britain from the 1950s onwards, West Indian victories provided a source of self-esteem. Whether they were passionate cricket fans or not, cricket offered some of the growing diaspora in Britain an opportunity to express a collective sense of identity.

Colin Babb reflects on events which influenced the development of the social impact of cricket on British Caribbean communities from the arrival of the Empire Windrush onwards.

They Gave the Crowd Plenty Fun also thoughtfully explores factors which have challenged cricket’s position as a social force for the current descendants of the Windrush generation.

Contributors to They Gave the Crowd Plenty Fun include Jimmy Adams, Basil Butcher, Tony Cozier, Lance Gibbs, Lord Bill Morris of Handsworth OJ, Deryck Murray, DJ Trevor Nelson, Professor Clem Seecharan and Gladstone Small.

• 216 x 138 mm
• 200 pages
• Paperback