REDS, AN ICON CALLS IT A DAY

Dec 07, 2016 Sports

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On the day Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira was to broadcast his final cricket match in Saint Lucia before

settling into retirement from broadcasting, he was instead sitting with me at a popular Rodney Bay café relating how the broadcasting of cricketing had taken him throughout the cricketing world.
Surely, it was not how he had anticipated ending his long love affair with the gentleman’s game. But a low tropical trough had dumped so much rain on the Darren Sammy Cricket Stadium that play had to be abandoned.
It was the fourth and final day of a regional match between ‘Reds’ native Guyana and the Windward Islands. There was however sufficient play on the first two days to earn Guyana first innings lead while sinking the Windward’s team into further despair.
As a child, Reds suffered the unenviable inability to speak clearly due to severe stuttering. He loved the game of cricket more than anything else in the world. His first recollection of being glued to rediffusion radio station was during the England versus West Indies test matches in England in 1950.
During that series John Arlott, Rex Alston and E.W. Stanton of England were to make a lasting impression on the young Perreira as they described the game, ball by ball, from the commentary box.
The following year (1951) when West Indies toured Australia Reds listened to the broadcast of these matches from 11pm to 4am. He listened intently to Australian commentators Jonny Moyes, Michael Charlton and Allan Mc. Gilvrey.
‘I became even more fascinated by the theatre and imagery of the game. I could see in my mind’s eyes the perfect green outfield as I listened to the crowd’s applause and saw the polished red sphere raced to the boundary from a perfectly timed cover drive.’ Reds was later to broadcast Australia versus West Indies test matches with Mc Gilvrey in 1973, 1978 and 1979.
‘I began to watch inter-colonial matches in my teens. The games were between British Guiana (BG), as it then was Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica. The first regional game I witnessed was between Barbados and BG. I was there for the highest opening partnership of 390 runs between Leslie White and Glendon Gibbs of BG – White 260 and Gibbs 216. That record lasted for 50 years. In those days my father, who was a very strict man, had given me a choice between the movies and cricket as recreation. I chose cricket.’
As the young Perreira watched he also listened to the broadcasts. By then he had dabbled in second division cricket and soon came to the realization, that he should concentrate on broadcasting the game, rather than pursue it as a career. He used to lie in bed every day broadcasting cricket from imaginary contests. His mother listened without ever asking him to desist, or to suggest that her son may have been a little off kilter.
‘I credit my mother for her subtle support in helping me overcome my embarrassing stuttering. However, the children at my school (St. Mary’s R.C.) were not as kind and supportive. I literally abandoned school in my teens because of the constant teasing.’
After school Reds worked for a short period and then left for England for five years to develop himself. ‘In England, I knocked around the BBC where Alva Clarke of Saint Lucia worked as a broadcaster. I also watched a lot of test and county cricket.
’Reds decided that he would return home at the end of 1967. He also made the decision to spend the greater part of that year in Denmark. It was in Denmark that his working hours finally allowed him the time to kick the stuttering habit once and for all. He worked the morning, noon and evening shifts as a dish washer and had the time between shifts to himself. He used that time to read the English newspapers which he bought at the railway station across the street from his workplace.
‘Pronouncing ‘R’s and ‘S’s were a particular challenge. I rehearsed these until my confidence began to grow. ’By the time Reds returned to Guyana at the end of 1967 he had broken the back of his stammering handicap. ‘In Guyana I was employed by Hugh Cholmondely (1969), at a radio station which he managed. I broadcast my first test match at Bourda (Guyana) in 1971.’
When asked to name the two most memorable cricket matches he broadcast, Reds took a long pause and then said: ‘There are so many, it’s difficult to choose just two.
’He then settled on the quarter-final match between West Indies and Pakistan in the first ever cricket world cup, a sixty-over affair played at Edgbaston, England in 1975. He then mentioned a test match between the West Indies and Australia at Adelaide, in January 1993, which West Indies won by one run.
In that one-day quarter-final contest Pakistan scored 276. West Indies with a strong batting line up were struggling at 203 for nine. Few if any, had given the West Indies any chance of winning that match. But in walked Andy Roberts to partner Derek Murray in the middle. The two began slowly taking quick singles and two’s whenever the opportunity arose.
Slowly but surely these two were inching towards 276, which they eventually achieved and won the match for West Indies. The West Indies went on the win the first ever one-day cricket world cup. Reds observed that during that tense last wicket partnership, no one left West Indies players dressing room. Many players wept openly as victory was snatched from the certain jaws of defeat, on that fateful day.
At Adelaide in 1993, the last Australian pair of Craig Mc. Dermott and Tim May needed two runs to win, after they had added 40 runs for the last wicket. Walsh bowled a delivery outside the leg stump which Mc. Dermott played for what seemed a certain boundary. Desmond Haynes dived full length at forward short leg and brilliantly stopped any runs.
The last ball of the over was a bouncer which Mc. Dermott gloved into the hands of wicketkeeper Junior Murray. West Indies won that match by two runs. That victory tied the series at one game each. West Indies then went to Perth where they demolished the Australians within three days of the five day test. Ambrose took seven for seventy-six in that match.
Reds colleague and friend Tony Cozier (who passed away earlier this year), was fondly remembered. Reds, on his first tour of duty, was sent with Cozier by the CBU to broadcast the series between England and the West Indies in 1975. They were joined by Jeffrey Charles of Dominica who then worked for the BBC in London. The English commentators in that series were Christopher Martin-Jenkins and John Arlott. Reds and Cozier went on to broadcast cricket for the next forty years together travelling the then known cricketing world.
When asked to what does he attribute his obvious success Reds replied thusly: ‘I think there was some guiding hand which led me to the life and profession I eventually had. There was also very hard work and effort on my part. At no time did I allow myself to think I was not good enough to achieve becoming a cricket commentator.’ It may very well be that that same guiding spirit led him to Saint Lucia where he headed the OECS sports desk from 1984 to1996. Reds now calls Saint Lucia home. During his many years in Saint Lucia Reds has been a great asset to sports in general and cricket in particular. Sports enthusiasts will welcome this opportunity to wish Reds the best of health and good luck as he retires from broadcasting the game he so dearly loves. Reds is due to broadcast his last cricket match in Guyana between that country and Barbados from 9 to 12 December, 2016.

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