Bill Hern and I first came across Calvin Symonds’ story when we were researching our book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ about the first black player to represent each of the 92 Football League clubs. We were surprised to find that a 23 year-old born in Bermuda on 29th March 1932 was the first black player for Rochdale AFC. He secured that honour in September 1955 in an away game at Barrow. There are probably more romantic places to launch a career! Calvin’s time in the Football League was cut short by a knee injury that two operations could not fix. He returned to Bermuda in 1956.
For such a small place, Bermuda is smaller than the Isle of Wight and has a population of around 62,000, it has certainly produced more than its share of top sportsmen. Although Calvin never played football at the highest level in England, his countryman, Clyde Best did and a number of other Bermudians have made it in the professional game.
Although Calvin continued to play football after returning to Bermuda it was as a cricketer that he truly made his mark. Indeed, when we approached Stephen Wright, the Sports Editor of Bermuda’s leading newspaper, the Royal Gazette, he only knew of Calvin as a cricketer, the two years Calvin spent in England playing football came as a surprise to him. But Stephen was very well aware of Calvin’s exploits on the cricket field as he is one of Bermuda’s most successful cricketers of all time.
In this article, originally published in The Nightwatchman (the quarterly magazine of the famous Wisden almanac) we offer a few snapshots from Calvin’s career. The Nightwatchman article did not include any photos an omission we rectify here. Yes, this is a football blog but we are unapologetic about including an article about cricket.
In years past there have been players who excelled at both cricket and football. Denis Compton, for instance, won 78 caps for England at cricket and was also a member of Arsenal’s team that won the Football League title in 1937/38, again in 1947/48 and the FA Cup in 1950. More recently, Ian Botham played professional football for Yeovil and Scunthorpe before deciding to focus on cricket. There have been many other examples of sportsmen who did well in both sports, Calvin Symonds is one of them.
Born in 1932, Calvin played his first ‘senior’ game at the age of just 14. It was in a cup match. Calvin’s team, Western Stars, had a long day in the field but when it was their turn to bat the opposing team’s captain suddenly objected to Calvin’s presence on the grounds that he was under age even though the rules of the competition did not specify a lower age limit. The captain refused to budge, as Calvin later commented “I guess he knew I was a good bat.” He made the short walk home shedding tears of disappointment. As it happened there was a friendly game between the same two teams the following Sunday, this time Calvin did get to bat – watched by his proud father, he scored 118. He had made his point, even though he had to wait two more years before playing in official league matches.
As soon as he was old enough he established himself as a regular in the St George’s team and he made his Cup Match debut for them in 1950 at the age of eighteen (we will return to ‘Cup Match’ later). Nerves got the better of him when he went in to bat. Facing his first ball, “I saw him [the bowler] coming in, I thought I had sighted the ball but I missed it. I immediately went into the shakes. I settled a little, but not enough as I made only two runs before getting out.” As we will see, he more than made up for this disappointment later in his career.
In December 1953 the MCC tourists stopped off in Bermuda on their way to that winter’s tour of the Caribbean. Strategically placed roughly three quarters of the way from England to Jamaica where the tour proper would start, Bermuda was the perfect place to break the journey, stretch legs and play some cricket. Three games were scheduled and Calvin played in two of them.
Calvin says “Normally we didn’t play any cricket in December but we accepted the challenge.”
The first game, played over the 16th and 17th December, was the one he missed and it proved controversial with a couple of doubtful umpiring decisions going against the visitors. The wicket was matting laid over concrete, a surface the tourists were less used to than their hosts, but none of that stopped them from winning by an innings, with spinners Wardle and Laker doing the damage.
The second game, played on 21st-23rd December, proved far more closely fought. Another spinner, Tony Lock this time, did the damage for the MCC with figures of 8 for 54 in Bermuda’s first innings. But MCC were caught unawares by the fearsome pace of Eugene Woods. Calvin says “Eugene was the quickest bowler I ever saw in Bermuda. He spent a couple of years in England as a pro. He was good to watch, a calm bowler who used to jump to the wicket just like a horse on a track. He was free in his movements and when he came to bowl, he could be devastating.”
He was certainly devastating in his opening spell against the MCC who had cruised to 90 without loss in their 1st innings and looked set to bat all day. But Eugene Woods had other ideas. He ripped through England’s top order, dismissing Len Hutton, Ken Suttle and Tom Graveney in the space of four balls and finishing with 5 for 49. Calvin chipped in with the vital breakthrough wicket of Denis Compton and later picked up the wickets of Laker, Lock and Trueman to finish with figures of 14-3-29-4. Eugene is still alive and living in Bermuda, even now he and Calvin chat about the MCC games when they get the chance to meet up.
Calvin made a significant contribution in the second innings too, clean bowling Tom Graveney. When Bermuda batted they were on the ropes until Calvin played his part in a determined seventh wicket partnership with McDonald Simmonds. His 11 not out was enough to steer Bermuda to 90 for 6 and a draw at close of play on the final day.
The third game was scheduled for 23rd, 24th and 26th December but MCC had brought the English weather with them and rain washed out the second and third day’s play. But not before another impressive bowling performance by Tony Lock (7-35) – Calvin was one of his victims, out for six.
Apart from Calvin and Eugene Woods, there can’t be many players alive who can claim to have taken the wickets of Denis Compton and Tom Graveney in a competitive match, we can think of one (maybe there are others) Guyanese off-spinner Lance Gibbs, good company to be in!
The England players were a sociable bunch and everyone got on well off the pitch. Calvin comments that “Denis Compton, he was a laugh, he enjoyed a little drink, he was a nice guy. Peter May was good too. When I was in England to play football with Rochdale I remember seeing Denis make a century against the South Africans at Old Trafford. He was good. As batsmen I would rate Compton and Graveney as on a par with each other, they both had the full range of shots.”
Calvin remembers Fred Trueman and Brian Statham as the two fastest bowlers he faced. Playing on the hard concrete pitches in Bermuda he said “they were quick, the ball would bounce over your head. The grounds aren’t big so the wicket keeper was well back towards the sightscreen when those two were bowling. No helmets in those days, you just had to hope they wouldn’t knock your head off!”
Calvin describes his own style as “I bowled right arm medium pace, not quick but I put the ball on the wicket and let the batsman make the mistake. I bowled just outside the off stick and tried to move the ball into you and hit your off stump or get you lbw, line and length and just enough movement to beat the bat or find an edge. Dattu Phadkar, the Indian professional at Rochdale, taught me that when I was in England playing football.”
County teams visited Bermuda regularly, Yorkshire came twice. Calvin played in one match featuring the likes of Ray Illingworth, Brian Close and Geoff Boycott, the latter “batted all day” as none of the Bermuda bowlers could shift him. Calvin described Boycott as “a little bit stuffy, he didn’t want to talk.” Gloucestershire also visited. Tom Graveney loved playing in Bermuda and Calvin remembers he got a double century not out on one visit.
Calvin made many overseas tours with Bermuda teams, the very first was to Canada and the US as a callow seventeen year-old, as Calvin said “the grass was higher than I was, that was disastrous.” He has fonder memories of his two trips to England in 1960 and 1962 with a mixed team, the Bermuda Wanderers.
The tour included a reception in the Long Room at Lords. The English organisers of the tour had under-estimated the strength of the Bermuda team and the Wanderers did very well, the club teams they were up against were not strong enough. Calvin remembers that Ealing was one of the teams they played and the Spencer cricket club, based in South West London, was another. The Wanderers won all but one of their eight fixtures, often with ease. The scoreboard below tells its own story, Calvin and Nigel ‘Chopper’ Hazell both made centuries.
The fact that the team included black and white players is worth noting. In 1948 when the Empire Windrush ship stopped at Bermuda on its historic voyage to Tilbury in England, the passengers from the Caribbean on their way to new lives in the UK, were shocked by the level of racism they observed on the island. Being expected to sit in segregated seating in the cinema for instance went down badly as did the ‘no coloureds’ signs they saw. Although a British Overseas Territory, Bermuda is far closer to the United States of America than it is to the UK and so it is regrettable but perhaps not surprising that some of the American attitudes towards its black people had become part of island life. The presence of an American naval base on the island clearly contributed.
When Calvin started playing football in Bermuda there were two separate leagues, a white league and a black league, change came about gradually and eventually, in the 1960s, the two leagues became one. Even on the 1960 tour to England, Calvin says the black players in the team were “teased” by white team mates. ‘We were not thinking like them,” Calvin said “we just wanted to advance Bermuda cricket.” Calvin had been referred to as ‘darkie’ while in England and his general comment about how to respond to adverse comments from the crowd, apply to more than just sport “sometimes people in the crowd will try to get to you. Let it go in one ear and out the other. You must be strong.”
The Wanderers returned to England in 1962 and this time they were pitted against County 2nd XI teams who included a number of future England players in their sides. Games were far more closely contested. Calvin much preferred this second tour “I always wanted to play against people a little better than myself to gain experience and improve my game.” This tour was shorter, there were games against Essex, Middlesex and Surrey. The Wanderers lost to Middlesex but drew against Surrey at Guildford even though the Surrey team included the likes of a young Geoff Arnold who would go on to take 115 wickets for England in 34 Tests. The Wanderers were able to see England playing Pakistan who were touring that year, only the second time they had visited. While he was in England, Calvin also took the chance to revisit Rochdale and meet up with some of his friends from the time he played football there.
As well as touring England, Calvin remembers a tour of Jamaica in 1958. “I remember one game in particular from that tour, a little village game about two hours outside of Kingston. When we got there it had been raining so much, we looked at the pitch and I said ‘we can’t play on that.’ One of the groundsmen said ‘oh yes you can,’ the guy put kerosene on the wicket and lit it to dry the wicket out. We played. They bowled us out for 51, the ball was jumping and spitting all over the place. They made 52 for 9 to win the game. That was an experience!” I’d like to see anyone try that at Lords!
The annual highlight of the calendar in Bermuda is ‘Cup Match’, think FA Cup Final and Notting Hill carnival rolled into one and you would be getting close to the spirit of Cup Match. Played to coincide with Emancipation Day, the anniversary of the emancipation of Bermuda’s enslaved population, it is much more than just a cricket match. Played between teams representing Somerset and St George’s it is a tradition that dates back to 1901. The annual game is a highlight of island life. It must be one of the few cricket matches around the world where an entire country shuts down while the game is played.
Calvin is pictured above at the time of his Cup Match debut in 1950. He would later captain the St George’s team for nine consecutive matches from 1961 to 1969, a sequence that saw St George’s win eight of the nine games (the only exception was a draw in 1963).
The 1964 match was perhaps the most memorable for Calvin, it was certainly the tightest finish and Calvin was instrumental in securing victory for St George’s. Somerset batted first and scored a respectable 199 all out. When St George’s had their first innings they reached 178-4 at the end of the first day’s play. On day 2 they run up a massive total of 338. Calvin scored 96. “That was the nearest I got to a Cup Match century” he said, “I should have made it having got that close but the excitement got to me. I was trying for a big hit but skied the ball and was caught at mid-wicket.”
When Somerset batted again, 139 runs adrift, it looked for a long time as though they were heading for an innings defeat, but a ninth wicket stand of 68 took them past St George’s total and the innings closed at 188 all out, leaving St George’s needing 50 to win.
Calvin recalls “We had to score 50 to win in 38 minutes. I re-arranged our batting order so that it was all right handers, that way we wouldn’t lose time while Somerset changed their fielders’ positions. It came down to the last over. We had seven wickets in hand but needed 10 to win. Sheridan Raynor, the Somerset captain, took responsibility for bowling the last six deliveries. Instead of his usual left arm spin he opted to bowl at medium pace, pushing the ball through. Dennis Wainwright was at the crease with me, he took a single to give me the strike. There were three balls left and we still needed eight to win. I pulled the next two balls to the mid-wicket boundary – we were home with one ball left. As the winning shot hit the boundary fence the whole crowd erupted and ran out onto the field. I got my mouth split as overjoyed fans lifted Dennis Wainwright and myself into the air to carry us off the field. It was utter chaos. I lost my bat and gloves and somebody took my pads off. I never did get any of them back. I suppose somebody kept them as souvenir.”
“You have to understand, Cup Match is like a festival. Most of the time people are walking about. But in the last half hour of this game nobody moved a muscle. You could hear a pin drop. They were all glued to the action, not missing a ball, not missing a run. Nine thousand spectators were packed into the ground and the tension in the closing stages was unbelievable.”
Calvin’s overall Cup Match record with the bat was a total of 624 runs at an average of 24, this included five half centuries. With the ball he took 30 wickets at 14.27 apiece. There were 24 catches too.
Ironically, Calvin, who was born and spent the early years of his life living in Somerset parish, had dearly wanted to play for them. A family move to St George’s parish ‘across the bridge’ (“the smallest bridge in the world”), and a strict Somerset policy of only using players resident in the area, drove him into the St George’s camp. Somerset certainly lived to regret that policy!
Summing up his time as captain Calvin commented “my philosophy as a captain was to try to play attractive cricket, and always give the other team a chance.” It was clearly an approach that paid dividends.
Another match that brings back fond memories for Calvin is the visit of an International XI to Bermuda in 1965. Played at the end of September, the visiting team was captained by England off-spinner Fred Titmus and included Ken Barrington, Fred Trueman, the Bajan-born Roy Marshall and the great Garfield (later Sir Garfield) Sobers.
Calvin was captain of the Bermuda XI and takes up the story. “This was a two day match. The international team won the toss and sent us in to bat. We didn’t do too well in our first innings and were bowled out for 75 of which I managed to score 25. But when it was our turn to bowl we skittled the visitors out for just 42! Clarence Parfitt, a brilliant left arm medium paced bowler, had the magnificent figures of 7 wickets for 12 runs, including the wicket of Garfield Sobers, clean bowled for a duck. Clarence was ably supported by Lee Raynor, another great Bermudian bowler who took 3 wickets for 29 runs. In our second innings we made a very respectable 147, setting the visitors 181 to win. In the International team’s second innings Parfitt picked up 4 more wickets for 22 runs, Joe Bailey took 4 for 37 runs, while Lee Raynor and myself chipped in with one wicket each. I picked up the prize wicket of Sir Garfield Sobers in the second innings, he was on 28 at the time. Bermuda won the two day match by 32 runs. Garfield was a great player, you didn’t know where to put the ball when you bowled to him. I played against him many times and we are good friends to this day.”
Calvin believes Clarence Parfitt was the best bowler Bermuda ever produced, a view widely shared by those in a position to know. He represented Bermuda in their inaugural 1st class match, taking five New Zealand wickets in their only innings. He went on to represent Scotland after he moved there in 1975 and still lives in Scotland. I asked Calvin how Clarence compared to Eugene Woods “Clarence was better, Eugene was quicker but Clarence was the better bowler, clever.”
When his playing career ended Calvin took on a coaching role in Bermuda, passing on his experience to a new generation. In 1968, Calvin was awarded the MBE for distinguished service to sport in Bermuda.
I asked Calvin about Bermuda cricket today and he said the standard has definitely declined and football has taken over as the main sport on the island. He did however mention one young cricketer, Delray Rawlins, Bermuda born, who is now playing his cricket with Sussex. Delray has a long way to go before he can emulate Calvin’s achievements in the game but, at 23, time is on his side.
Summing up Calvin’s career , the Bermudian journalist, Tommy Aitchison, said “there’s no doubt in my mind that Calvin Symonds should have had a career as a professional cricketer. He possessed the natural talent, temperament and leadership, even as a youngster, to be a successful professional.” Another accolade from Calvin’s coach ,’Champ’ Hunt, described him as “one of the finest athletes the island has produced.”
Calvin recently celebrated his 89th birthday, he still looks remarkably trim and enjoys living quietly with his wife and daughter JeanMaire. “Life” he concludes “has been good to me.”
