There is a group of supporters in England who have driven 1,789 miles to support the West Indies team at the 2019 ICC World Cup.
Although the team failed to impress, winning only two games and not advancing to the semifinals, the group of friends has vowed to continue supporting the Caribbean side because they say no distance is too far to travel to show their support.
The group, led by Dominican Martin Adrien, featured some of the faces that the West Indies players saw regularly in England during the tournament.
Martin was joined by a group of truly dedicated supporters, including the Guyanese Michael Bacchus, Trinidadian Peter Matthews, Dominican David Blacher, Jamaicans Raymond Asher and Audley Johnson, Barbadian Carlyle Stuart and local boy Errol Panton, as they drove around the country to support the team.
Adrien explained: “When we saw the fixtures we were very upset at the fact that they were not putting our boys to play any games in London. With all due respect, they even give teams like Bangladesh three games in London and the West Indies got none. Not even one at what we called our ‘home ground’ in the past, the Oval in London. (But) we said this would not affect our boys in terms of not getting out support.”
Bacchus, who has been a supporter for decades and lives in East London, added: “We started off by going to Ireland six times to support the boys in the tri-series over there. It was cheaper to fly rather than stay across there for the entire period. However, we went across for all the matches.”
They then visited Southampton to support Holder’s men during their World Cup warm-up match against Australia. This would have covered 156 miles for the round trip, as the group is based in London. They then drove to Bristol twice to take in the West Indies’ other warm-up games against New Zealand and South Africa. This would have entailed a total drive of 472 miles.
The World Cup then started and the group rented a school bus as school was out and drove twice to Nottinghamshire. Here, they covered a 512-mile round trip for the two visits. During the Windies’ opening win against Pakistan at Trent Bridge, they even had to wait two hours idle on the motorway because of an accident. They made the most of that, however, by throwing an impromptu party at the side of the road, since Blacher always has choice beverages in his bag and boasts he is always prepared as he was a boy scout back in the day in Dominica.
After this long journey, the men were eager to go to Southampton because the team was showing signs of doing great things. A massive win over Pakistan, followed by a narrow defeat to Australia had given them encouragement. They drove 308 miles to the Hampshire Bowl in Southampton only to see seven overs and one ball in a washout match against South Africa. Still, they were not deterred.
A couple of days’ later they were signing their way to the same venue but left a deflated lot as West Indies lost to England by eight wickets. Next stop was Taunton in Somerset and the group found themselves there after driving for 298 miles.
A crushing seven-wicket defeat at the hands of Bangladesh still left these guys with hope that their team could move to the semis. They continued to follow them for the long haul to Manchester (twice) at 402 miles, Durham 534 miles and ended their journey with a drive of 394 miles round trip to Headingley, Leeds, where they at least got a consolation 23-run win against Afghanistan.