Rochdale Rotary charity dinner raises £2,000 for cricket coaching

Sir Gordon Greenidge speaking

West Indian cricketer Sir Gordon Greenidge was the guest speaker at Rochdale Rotary Club's 10th cricket fundraising event held at the Masonic Buildings in Rochdale on 21 September.

£2,000 was raised at the dinner which will go towards funding cricket coaching for young people of Rochdale through the Lancashire Cricket Foundation. Schools and local cricket clubs are involved in the programme for girls and boys.

Sir Gordon was invited by fellow Barbadian Rotarian, John Holder, a former test match umpire. John leads a small Rotary team of cricket enthusiasts who organise the annual event and over £25,000 has been raised so far.

At the start of the evening, president of the Rotary Club, Linda Mainwaring welcomed a very enthusiastic audience of over 90. Rotarian John Kay was the MC and everyone enjoyed a delicious three course dinner, a game of standup bingo and a raffle of cricket and other tasty delights.

Auctioneer for the night, Rotarian Andrew Sharples auctioned a Geoff Butterworth original painting of Old Trafford Cricket ground and a Jos Buttler signed photographic memento of England winning the 2019 ICC World Cup. These raised over £400.

Sir Gordon then gave us an excellent review of his cricket career. Starting at Hampshire he was assistant to the groundsman at first but with the encouragement of famous commentator John Arlott he rapidly progressed to being their opening batsman. With great dedication he became a very successful batsman to be feared by opposing teams. He became part of the all-conquering West Indian team of the 1980s. His greatest moment came in 1984 at Lords against England when he scored 226 out of 342 runs needed to win, in just 66 overs.

A question-and-answer session followed led by Rotarian Neil Helliwell. Sir Gordon mentioned many other great cricketers of the time including West Indian captain Clive Lloyd, his batting partner Desmond Haynes and Barry Richards who he opened with at Hampshire. He feels Test cricket is under some pressure to survive with the advent of one day cricket but thinks it is the ultimate cricket contest for both players and the public and should continue.

In retirement he became coach of Bangladesh and helped get them the 1997 ICC trophy and they qualified for the Cricket World cup. This also helped them achieve full test status and he was made a citizen of Bangladesh as a thank you for his efforts.

He was knighted in 2020 for services to cricket and to the development of sport.