‘I’m getting away from the sun’: when Garry Sobers took his talents to Stoke

The West Indies cricket legend spent three seasons in the Potteries. ‘He enjoyed the nightclubs,’ recalls a teammate

By Scott Oliver from his book Sticky Dogs and Stardust

Learie Constantine was the first West Indian superstar to light up the English cricket leagues. He drew five-figure crowds to Nelson in the 1930s, steered them to seven Lancashire League titles in nine years and later became the UK’s first black peer.

The way was paved for successive generations of great cricketers from the Caribbean, starting in the 1950s with “The Three Ws”: Everton Weekes averaged a staggering 91.6 across seven years at Bacup; Clyde Walcott had similar success at rivals Enfield; and Frank Worrell, the West Indies’ first black captain, bossed things for Radcliffe in the neighbouring Central Lancashire League, where Sonny Ramadhin was busy bamboozling all-comers.