Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
John’s England adventure
John Butterworth has revealed how he brushed shoulders with West Indian cricket royalty - and saw an England star - while on England over-60s’ triumphant tour of Barbados.
The popular Whitstable CC player was part of the senior England squad which won the Carib Cup.
During the tour, Butterworth spotted plenty of famous faces - including England’s Barbadosborn all-rounder Chris Jordan - while Sir Gordon Greenidge spoke at their end-of-tournament presentation night.
He said: “I’ve always followed West Indies Cricket from an early age.
“I met Wes Hall, Charlie Griffiths and Roland Butcher, who was the first black English player. He’s now a selector [for West Indies].
“We met Gordon Greenidge as well. Greenidge actually presented the trophy at the presentation night for all the teams.
“I think he was taken a bit by surprise - I’m not sure he was expecting to be asked to do that - but he was good value. “And I saw Chris Jordan while I was there. One of the scorers was the wife of Raymon Reifer who is currently playing for West Indies in South Africa. “Him and Jordan must have grown up together. So I ended up seeing all these people!” England beat Australia in the Final at the Kensington Oval and Butterworth revelled in the chance to play at the iconic stadium.
“You feel like you’re being treated like you’re a professional or at least doing the same things a professional would do,” he said. “That was really nice. It’s just a nice feeling to think ‘Oh, I’m quite important too’. Being selected for your country - it doesn’t matter at what level - is great.
“We even sung the national anthem before the games.” Butterworth received a congratulatory message from Whitstable CC chairman Nick Denly - the father of Kent batsman Joe Denly - after their Final triumph.
He said: “Nick Denly sent me a message, saying everyone was really pleased for me when we won the tournament. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to feed it all back to the club if they’re interested at some point.” England’s success came as they bounced back from losing their first match against Australia to beat USA, an International Invitational XI - added to the tournament after the withdrawal of Canada - the Rest of the World and West Indies to reach the Final.
Butterworth reflected: “We lost the first game quite narrowly. “Of all the games you’d like to lose, you’d probably say it’s the first one because you’ve only just landed.
“We could have beaten Australia but they, obviously, were in good shape from playing cricket back home and, also, I think they had a couple of warm-up games. So we did pretty well to compete with them. “But it was nice to get the win in the Final against them. “One of our batters, Edward Gordon-lennox, was batting really well by that point. He smashed them to all parts.” Fellow Kent players Rupert Staples and Jim Phillips also were part of the England over60s’ contingent.
“We did well actually as a group during the tournament,” suggested Butterworth. “Unfortunately, we didn’t get to bat very much. But we contributed with the ball. “Jim and I bat in the middleorder for Kent, but we weren’t batting anywhere near there this time! I think it was fair enough, though.
“We had some batters, some bowlers and some allrounders, and we bowled a lot. I think I bowled 35 overs so we contributed to the victory.” While most of the England squad headed home after the Final, Butterworth, an artist, prolonged his stay to do some work and turned 61 while abroad He said: “From my point of view, I’m actually developing a connection between, obviously, my love of cricket and my artistic nature.
“Maybe I’ll do a project around cricket grounds. I did a few paintings of cricket grounds out there anyway, which was quite interesting for me.
“I’ve not really painted cricket as a subject until now. “That could lead me off to similar things here. During the summer, Australia are coming to visit for the Grey Ashes. “That’s a five-game one-day series so I might be able to do something around those games as well.
“That’s just a spin-off for me, but it’s a great connection that I’ve not been able to develop. “It feels like there’s an opportunity there for me to start creating projects around cricket.”