The West Indies’ first black captain: Sir Frank Worrell

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The brilliant cricketer Frank Worrell became the first permanent Black captain of the West Indies team in 1960 – but he had to wait for a decade to get the job, denied by the elitism, insularity and racism of Caribbean cricket's rulers. BBC producer and cricket author Simon Lister travels to Barbados to find out how Worrell's upbringing, his cricketing adventures and his determination not to be cowed by the powers that ran island cricket, shaped a man who changed the West Indian game for ever. Simon Lister also considers Frank Worrell's legacy for today, speaking to Ebony Rainford-Brent, England's women's first Black cricketer who discovered that she had a unique connection to Frank Worrell that changed her life. ***This programme contains outdated and discriminatory language***

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We want what all they say.
0:05.0	Wow the crowd, I'm real.
0:08.0	I don't know how many that could be easily 10,000 plus people on the field.
0:11.0	I'm with the former England cricketer Ebony
0:13.9	Rainford Brent and we're on the pavilion balcony at the oval ground in London
0:18.6	watching footage from here in 1963 Frank Warrell's last international match in England.
0:25.6	What a moment for Frank Warrell.
0:27.6	He was mostly the most respected black people in the whole of the world at this point to get that sort of reception.
0:34.7	Worl was 39 in 1963, a great captain of a great West Indies side waving farewell to a crowd of English and West Indian
0:45.2	fans from the balcony just below us. Within a year he would be awarded a knighthood by the Queen. By the age of 42, Sir Frank Woral would be dead.
0:57.0	Well, what a tremendous scene here.
0:59.0	The West Indies have won the match, and I'm sure everybody would like to congratulate Frank
1:03.2	Worrell and his men but having given us the most wonderful series we've had in
1:06.7	this country.
1:09.7	Three chairs a warrior.
1:10.7	Everlast been captain. Never Lost in Captain. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service and I'm Simon Lister, a journalist and author who writes about West Indian cricket history and this is the story of Frank
1:26.2	Warrell whose life intersected with a changing Caribbean world which saw him become the first full-time black captain of the West Indies team
1:35.6	and a quick warning you will hear some outdated and discriminatory language.
1:41.3	The first black man that proves to them that he had the same ability or more.
1:47.0	They saw in Laurel the epitome of that Western young person that they felt represented their finest sense of
1:56.8	their cells.
1:57.8	He represented freedom for so many people.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.