By Professor Clem Seecharan
(Clem Seecharan is a cricket Historian and author of Hand-in-Hand History of Cricket in Guyana, two volumes of which have been published. He is writing the third. This tribute has been prepared for the “Night of Recognition” for Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira which is to be held at the GCC on March 8th.)
This year marks the 165th anniversary of the founding of the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC), and 138 years since it relocated from the Parade Ground to Bourda. You have hosted many memorable matches (including the first Test ever won by the West Indies, in February 1930). You have sponsored numerous events in appreciation of people of high achievement in our noble game. But it gives me ‘abounding joy’ that you are tonight honouring Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira, one of the most accomplished radio commentators in the history of cricket, nearly 52 years since he first commentated on a Test match. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that this celebration of Reds’s life is taking place at Bourda, for this was the venue of that match, West Indies v. India, in March 1971.