Much more than a Cricket book
Roland Butcher, the first Black cricketer to play international cricket for England in 1980 is much more than a cricketer and his new autobiography Breaking Barriers – Barbados to England… and back is much more than a cricket book.
The book is written in conjunction with Dr Sasha Sutherland, who Roland first met as a student during his fifteen-year spell as director of sport at the University of West Indies. However, unlike many cricket autobiographies this book is not full of stories of match winning innings and pre- and post-match activities. As a trailblazer who created history by becoming the first Black cricketer to play for England, Roland’s Breaking Barriers is more a self-help book with key messages for all age groups embedded in the life of a cricketing ambassador.
Roland has been a cricketer, a coach at both cricket and football, a mentor, a commentator, a selector, and a director of sport. A man of many talents. Crucially though he has been an inspiration to others and continues to be.
While Roland ‘s parents were wind rushed to England in 1955 he was brought up from an early age by his paternal grandmother and aunt in the plantation area of East Point in Barbados, sixteen miles from the capital Bridgetown.
It was a tough life. There was no running water in the house. Every day before school Roland would walk about half a mile to bring back buckets of water for the household. Plus, daily he would walk even further, up to three miles, to look after his grandmother’s sheep and goats.
Those early days before he moved to England at thirteen, perhaps unbeknown to him at the time, gave Roland the preparatory skills for the rest of his life. The value of hard work and family instilled by his grandmother and aunt are a feature along his journey in Breaking Barriers.
Hard work along with immense talent helped Roland sustain a county career with a successful Middlesex side for two decades. A family, who won and regularly fielded five other Black players who all played international cricket. He also became the first Black man to captain Middlesex. Another barrier was broken.
A brilliant fielder, known as hoover for his skills in the cover region, and a batter who mixed grace with power Roland tamed the fearsome Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson on his one-day international debut at Edgbaston in 1980. His half century after 36 ballswas at the time the fastest by a debutant in a One Day International, a record he held for 41 years.
Roland candidly reveals the challenges he faced when he was selected to become the first Black player to play Test cricket for England including the opposition he encountered in the UK before he left for the Caribbean. There could have been no stiffer test than a debut in Barbados, the island of his birth against the West Indies arguably the strongest side to ever grace the Test match arena. Although he failed by his standards to score the runs he hoped in those three tests he had made history.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t given the chance to play for England again. In the Stokes/McCullum era of today he may have succeeded in breaking even more barriers.
Roland had arrived in England at a time of heightened racism and prejudice, but you feel through the book that he just got on with his life, acknowledged the obstacles and then focused on how to achieve his goals. No easy thing in the 1970s and 1980s.
Breaking Barriers is a book about the values and qualities of a man who has made his mark in life, who wants to pass on what he has learnt to benefit others. It is not a book of self-praise. Roland is someone who continues to work hard and help others just like his grandmother and aunt did throughout their lives and for him during his formative years.
This is a book for all ages and certainly not just for sports people. It’s the story of a humble man who through perseverance, resilience and hard work reached for the stars and got there Breaking Barriers along the way.