By Clayton Goodwin
Aided by Donald Patrick Menzies
Badge Menzies?
It is not often that the umpire becomes the centre of the story, but it does happen sometimes. And it happened to Badge Menzies. Yet there was more to this Guyanese distinguished groundsman and umpire than meets the eye. Menzies was so much more than being just one story. To find out more about him, we have to travel back to a time when Guyana was not even known yet as Guyana. It was still British Guiana and the colony’s future was clouded.
As Donald Patrick Menzies, his grandson, explains below, that one Test Match, for which Menzies is remembered, occurred during a period of intense political emotion and agitation. Before I hand over to Donald, may I add that when the prospect of publishing this piece was aired on Facebook we received tributes remembering Badge Menzies as being a modest and generous man.
Let Donald take up the story of his grandfather:
“Badge was the son of a Scotsman and an East Indian woman. His father was quite wealthy but when he had to return to England he was not allowed to take Badge with him. That was because of the infamous color code that ruled throughout the British Empire and its colonies. He gave Badge all his wealth and property but it left a scar on him that embittered him. Badge devoted the rest of his life to overthrowing the colonial system and liberating the colonies. In Constantine, Headley and others he found kindred spirits. Each colored colonial subject of that time carried similar painful scars from enduring the numerous insufferable ignominies of the British colonial system. It drove these men and determined their lives. It is merely a sport when you are playing to win the game. It is History when you are playing to win your Freedom. Cricket became the prime method of their struggle. Politics and revolution became entwined with the game.
It reached a historic climax on February 27th 1954 when Badge was placed under house arrest by Sir Len Hutton and the British Governor and forced to umpire an infamous test match that was caught up in the covert operations of the Cold War. British Guiana was under emergency rule at that time after the US and British governments had labelled the national liberation movement in the colony as a “communist revolution”. Cricket, politics and revolution became completely intertwined in the West Indies”.
The tour, which had got off on the wrong foot, and stayed there, was approaching its midway-point. England were already 0-2 down in the series, and tensions within the team and with their hosts were at little short of boiling point. Relations had not been soothed by bad temper, disputed decisions and coarse language during the colony game against British Guiana. The tourists were dissatisfied with the appointment of local umpires Cecil Kippins and Alwyn “Toby” Rollox to officiate in the Third Test Match at Bourda, Georgetown.
A comprise was reached in replacing the nominated umpires by two other local men – namely Badge Menzies and “Wing” Gillette. The Englishmen were concerned by a possible conflict of interest with Menzies’ role as Georgetown CC groundsman. The Bourda pitch is described in Wikipedia, incidentally, as having “the reputation of being the best turf pitch in the Caribbean”.
I am indebted for a concise, yet detailed, description and explanation of the events that followed to Who Only Cricket Know (Hutton’s Men in the West Indies 1953/1954) by David Woodhouse, among other reports, which is not only the best cricket book I have ever read but, with its in-depth appreciation of the social, political and historical (as well as cricket) context and shrewd pen-portraits of the players and officials involved is arguably the best book I have read on any topic. The author summarises the various points of view on individual and sometimes confusing incidents without being censorious or judgemental.
The match was played in a cauldron of controversy and tension. The teams were at odds with each other – much of it arising from the touring team’s enforced policy of “non-fraternisation” – and the media. The political atmosphere was contentious. Political leaders and trade unions fought big business and the sugar-producing establishment for better wages and conditions. Commentator Joseph “Reds” Perreira remembers: “British troops were sent in and arrived with fixed bayonets which surprised the population somewhat as there were no riots or major disturbances to be quelled”. Georgetown Cricket Club was regarded with concern by other parts of the community. And gambling and rum-drinking was rife. It was a case of lighting the blue touchpaper and retiring, but nobody retired.
Matters came to a head when J.K. Holt, the Jamaican batsman to whom the tourists had taken exception because they suspected he had benefitted from more than his fair share of debatable decisions and had “played up on” his injury, was joined at the wicket by local wicketkeeper/hero Clifford McWatt with West Indies very much on the back foot. These batsmen had taken their eighth-wicket stand to 98, which was still 234 runs behind their opponents’ total, when Peter May, fielding at square-leg zipped in an accurate throw to wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans, running out McWatt. Nobody on either side, or in the crowd, objected to Menzies’ raised finger signalling the batsman’s dismissal.
The normal lively chatter and discussion around the ground grew in intensity as the next batsman, Sonny Ramadhin, walked to the wicket. Then somebody threw a bottle onto the pitch. More followed until there was quite a fusillade. Wooden packing-cases followed. Being the official in charge Badge took the brunt of the assault. Then “the mood of the crowd developed quickly into a kind of frenzy and it spread like a bush-fire round the ground”. One England player threw a bottle back at the crowd, and, it is reported, captain Len Hutton, signed to them with his fingers/hands behind his back, which did little to defuse the situation. After appearing at first to want to run for safety, the players, and umpires, rode out the rage by staying on the pitch.
The invective was not personal. When Menzies gave a later run-out decision against Alfred Valentine, which brought the West Indies first innings to a close, there was no noise or controversy. Whatever had caused the outbreak of emotion evapourated as suddenly as it had arisen. For this Badge Menzies must receive a significant share of the congratulation. It goes without saying that if the official is to blame when things go wrong, then he is equally responsible when they are set right.
Let it not be forgotten that Badge and his colleagues had to deal with some strong-willed and controversial characters. As there is no record of any specific action Badge took to enforce discipline, I like to think that, in the light of what his grandson Donald has told us, and to which our Facebook friends have testified, the general respect he had built up with the local people and officials went a long way to achieving the restoration of good order
David Woodhouse concluded:
“It is impossible not to feel sympathy for Badge Menzies. In difficult weather conditions, he had crafted a pitch which produced an excellent Test match. Under even more difficult circumstances, he had found himself at the end where nearly all the tricky decisions were required. And he had probably filled in as umpire under duress. Hutton was surprised when one of the local officials told him: “If I say he’s got to stand, he will stand”. While Menzies’ Indian heritage may have been provocative to some Georgetown blacks, he was also a symbol of GCC, not only its groundsman but its tenant – he lived in a shed* under the pavilion which was now under police guard. The missiles thrown at him were perhaps really being aimed at his employers”.
* described elsewhere as being the “groundsman’s residence”
When all is said and done, those same employers, and their counterparts, must have been well-pleased with his work because Badge Menzies went on to supervise the laying of a new turf pitch to replace the matting at Queen’s Park Oval, Port of Spain, Trinidad.
Yes, Badge Menzies was more than just a man for one match.
Grandson Donald has informed us that Badge’s family are concerned that his grandfather has been treated unfairly by some of the written records, and particularly by the statement of Len Hutton, whom they affirm as being a great batsman, and the slur that Mr Menzies was living in a shed. Donald contrasts this unfavourable impression with tribute in the Australian to Badge of being a “legendary groundsman”, in the Trinidadian press to this responsibility for the “miracle of Bourda”, Test cricketer Basil Butcher referring to him as the “guru”, as well as references in the English press to his “impeccable umpiring qualifications”.
He is perplexed as to his grandfather being described as “living in a shed” when such noted cricketers, and Guyanese heroes, as Rohan Kanhai, Clyde Walcott, Basil Butcher and Joe Solomon had stayed at his home. Donald refers to how his Uncle Leon, Badge’s only surviving child, now 84 years-old and living in Toronto, had grown up in Badge’s homes, including the one in Bourda with four bedrooms. As a teenager Leon had served refreshments to the players at the Bourda match in 1954 and very much disputes the “perversion” that his father lived in a “shed”.
The family consider that the matter, and any enmity that may have existed between participants, should be put to rest, and they are concerned solely that Mr Menzies’ good name and reputation should be protected. Whatever else, this discussion has provided an opportunity for those points-of-view to be aired and registered.